Daniel's LASIK Procedure from start to finish

Daniel: I'm anxious, nervous, but I'm super excited to see without glasses, contacts, and I feel good. I'm just ready for it start and end, and see the end results. A lot of my co-workers have had it done. My boss has had it one. And I feel that my quality of life could be better. Swimming, going to the beach without having to worry about contacts, glasses, things like that. A lot of people I've talked to have came through to Koch. It's all laser. And I'm skeptical about the little cheese cutter, the whole procedure being done.

Daniel: So after all this, I decided to go ahead and have it done. And I'm super excited for it. I'm ready to get rid of them forever, contacts too.

Dr. Richard Sayegh: So what we're about to do here with Daniel, is a bladeless LASIK treatment. So what it involves is two lasers. There's actually a two step procedure. What we're going to do is first, take Daniel over. He'll come on in the room, and my assistant's going to sit him down on this bed. He's going to be face up. And this bed is nice, because it just swivels between the two lasers. So Daniel doesn't ever have to step up at all, during the entire procedure.

Dr. Richard Sayegh: So we swivel the bed over to the left, and this is the first step of the procedure. This is what's called a femtosecond laser, and this is the one where you get the eye ready for the treatment that removes the prescription for glasses. Okay. So we do this on each eye. Okay. This takes only about three or four minutes, and then from this point, we just swivel Daniel right over to this one. This is what's referred to as an excimer treatment. This is where the real magic happens. This actually erases the patient's need for distance glasses.

Dr. Richard Sayegh: And this procedure takes about three to six minutes on this side of things. So the whole procedure is really within 10 minutes for the most part. Essentially painless, a little bit of awkwardness. You'll see, because there is a little bit of suction, but for the most part, it really is a painless procedure. 10 minutes to change a patient's life, so it's a really neat thing.

Dr. Richard Sayegh: That's your bed. Chris is going to position you. You'll like this, so we're going to give you extra numbing medicine. Good, and the left. Good. Close your eyes. All kidding aside, take some nice deep breaths. And I just want you to picture yourself in your happy place, okay. We're going to position some things in a moment. And now we're positioning him under the first laser. It's a femtosecond laser. We're about to get ready to create what we call a flap, which is what we do prior to the treatment that actually gets rid of his prescription for glasses.

Dr. Richard Sayegh: In a moment, this fancy machine is going to come close, and for about 20 seconds, it gets a little awkward. You'll feel a little pressure, really, no pain at all. And those lights, they'll disappear, okay. When that happens, just know it's totally normal. It'll be over in about 20 seconds, all right.

Staff: Section one melting. Section two melting.

Dr. Richard Sayegh: Up one. Out and out. Good. And that was perfect, buddy. Hard part's done on the right side, okay. You did great.

Daniel: Sorry.

Staff: No worries. You're doing great. Creepy, right. There's no way to sugar coat it.

Daniel: Yes.

Dr. Richard Sayegh: But you did great. You can open up your eyes, Daniel. Get used to the bright lights again. We're in front of your left eye now, okay.

Daniel: Okay.

Dr. Richard Sayegh: Same sort of thing. Good. Just like that, looking at the ring of lights. A little bit of awkwardness for about 20 seconds or so, okay.

Staff: Good.

Dr. Richard Sayegh: Here we go. Good, just like that. Down, down, down. Keep going down, keep going down. Left. No, right. Right twice. And activate. All right, buddy. Hard part's done with both sides, okay. Okay, now bring your eye back to neutral over here. Take a nice deep breath, because the hard part's over, okay.

Daniel: Okay.

Dr. Richard Sayegh: We're going to go over to the other side. This is the side where the magic happens, where we get rid of the prescription. And it's a whole lot easier, to be perfectly honest, okay. No weird pressure. No dim lights. Straightforward. Second laser. Different lights, less intimidating, this side, okay.

Daniel: Okay.

Dr. Richard Sayegh: The color light I want you to look for is the green. You might see some bubbles in your field of vision. That's normal. Just keep looking through that towards the green light. I'll remind you there's no needles or anything. There's no knives, needles. It's all laser, okay.

Daniel: Okay.

Dr. Richard Sayegh: So you might see some sponges in front of your eyes, but never anything sharp, okay. You're doing really great. I'm going to dim the lights to make it a little easier for you. It's only going to take about three seconds, okay. Good. You did perfect. You're all done with that eye. Half-way done, buddy. You did great, okay. There's bubbles in front, so it'll be fuzzy, but you're looking for the green light, okay. See that green light. Okay, I'll dim it for you again, Daniel.

Dr. Richard Sayegh: And that's it. Daniel, good job, buddy. I'm putting the final touches on here.

Daniel: Super glue.

Dr. Richard Sayegh: Well, I'm a perfectionist, but that's okay. You want your surgeon to be a perfectionist, right. Daniel, congratulations. The world of glasses is over for you. So just finished up with Daniel. He did beautifully, of course. Most patients tend to think it was a little easier than they anticipated. I think most of the time it's the fear of the unknown that kind of gets them. But they come in here and they say, "You know what? That wasn't that bad. And if I knew it was that easy, I would have done it a whole lot sooner."

Dr. Richard Sayegh: So he just did great. He's sat out there, he's going to be in the waiting room for just about five minutes. I'll check him under the microscope, make sure everything is right exactly where I left it, which it will be. And then we'll give him the thumbs up, a little more of patient education, give him a little of what to expect tonight. And we'll send him on his way to go home and get some rest.

Daniel: It feels awesome. Awesome. I'm excited. It was quick, simple, easy, painless. And I wish I had have done it years ago. Instead, I let my nerves get the best of me, for many years. And I regret that part, but I don't regret today at all. The timing of it was literally seconds. And there was no pain involved. It was extremely easy process to go through, and I would highly recommend it to anyone that's thinking about doing it. Absolutely.