Your cornea is the clear dome on the front of your eye, overlying the coloured iris and dark central pupil. You can think of the cornea as the distance lens of the eye.
When you place glasses or contacts in front of your cornea, you are adding a lens to your visual system. We do this by placing a spectacle lens in front of your cornea, or a contact lens on top of your cornea. But your cornea itself does not change focus.
During laser vision correction we do the opposite. Instead of placing a spectacle of contact lens in front of your cornea, we remove a lens shape from within your cornea.
This can be done by “vaporising” (photoablation) thet lens shape using an ultraviolet excimer laser. This is done in PRK or LASIK, and is why these laser eye surgeries create a noise and odour. Laser Vision SA was the first laser eye surgery clinic in Adelaide to perform all laser LASIK in 2012
In SMILE laser vision correction, this is done by “cutting” (photodisruption) the outline of a very thin contact lens shape (lenticule) using an infrared femtosecond laser Then the lenticule is withdrawn from your your cornea via a microtunnel. The SMILE laser creates no noise or odour and so is preferred by many patients. Laser Vision SA was the first laser eye surgery clinic in Adelaide to perform SMILE in 2014, the same year Dr Fraenkel received bilateral SMILE himself.
Laser Vision Correction refocuses your eye for clear vision by altering the shape of the clear front of your eye, the cornea. The laser does this by removing a very fine layer from the centre or periphery of your cornea.
