Is Lasik surgery permanent?

What a great question! The short answer is "Yes." But that would be a very misleading response if you realize you cannot take it at face value:

The flattening effect on the cornea of the eye with LASIK is definitely permanent. Your cornea will not grow back to its original thickness. It would also be extraordinarily unlikely you would ever return to being as myopic (nearsighted) as you were before LASIK.

But that is not the same thing as saying the vision you get after LASIK is permanent. The real question you may be asking is "Will the vision I get with having LASIK be permanent?"

The answer to that is definitely "no." Your eye's focus is not purely due to the shape of the cornea -that is altered with LASIK. The natural lens of the eye, sitting behind the pupil, is responsible for about 1/3 of your distance vision and most all of your near vision. This lens will unavoidably harden and discolor with age. When this eventually happens, you will probably need reading glasses for up close tasks. These same age-related changes in the natural lens will also eventually adversely affect your distance vision, too. Fortunately, there are treatments for that, and if you have LASIK in your 20s, you will probably have excellent vision for many, many years.

The other possible impact on your future vision are such issues as pathology (degeneration) of the other parts of the eye, such as cataract and macular degeneration. Even with a perfectly unchanging cornea after LASIK, there will eventually be changes in your vision unrelated to the effects of the LASIK.

_Written by J. Trevor Woodhams, M.D. - Chief of Surgery, Woodhams Eye Clinic