Refractive errors make people’s vision blurry, reading and driving difficult, and give you headaches because of straining the eyes. More than a hundred million people worldwide have a refractive error, thus making them have poor vision. To see clearly, such people must use prescription eyeglasses or contact lenses. SMILE Eye Surgery in Delhi is the new alternative way to enable you to restore your 20/20 vision. You may have to ditch your glasses or contact lenses after this surgery. SMILE Eye Surgery seems to be a more promising alternative as compared to LASIK surgery in some cases. Due to its minimally invasive technique, this procedure may be an upcoming option for more patients undergoing refractive surgery.

What is SMILE Eye Surgery?

SMILE is a short word for Small Incision Lenticule Extraction. SMILE eye surgery is a procedure that involves reshaping the cornea by removing a small lens from the central corneal layer. The process uses a femtosecond laser and extracts the lenticule through four small incisions on the corneal surface. This procedure aims to correct the refractive or focusing errors in your vision. The types of refractive errors are; astigmatism (blurred vision at all distances), hypermetropia, myopia, and presbyopia (inability to focus your eyes close up). The SMILE eye surgery is similar to LASIK and may have some merits over LASIK for some patients. SMILE eye surgery has some pretty good outcomes and is a beneficial surgery for vision correction.

What does SMILE Eye Surgery do exactly?

The SMILE eye surgery changes the curvature of your cornea, restoring refraction to normal and giving you sharp vision again. This surgery will reduce the need for eyeglasses or contact lenses. You may regain your vision fully with this procedure. SMILE eye surgery is now available in Delhi.

How much does SMILE Eye Surgery cost in Delhi?

The cost of SMILE Eye Surgery varies from one surgeon to the other due to the practice location, follow-up exams and enhancements included, and the surgeon’s experience. The price range for SMILE Eye Surgery is very similar to LASIK Surgery. The price range for SMILE Eye Surgery in Delhi is around INR 1,30,000.

Is SMILE Eye Surgery painful?

Anesthetic eye drops will be put in your eyes before the surgery to numb the eyes. You will feel a slight heaviness in your eyes but with zero pain during the procedure, which you will be awake all through.

Is this a permanent eye treatment?

Through numerous research and studies, this is now a permanent eye treatment for your refractive errors.

Is SMILE Eye Surgery right for you?

If you suffer from any refractive error, as mentioned above, then you might be the right candidate for SMILE Eye Surgery. If you are the right candidate, you will undergo a comprehensive eye exam and a consultation with a refractive surgeon. To get the SMILE Eye surgery in Delhi then, you must be available in Delhi first. Then from there, you may begin to prepare for the SMILE surgery. However, there are some additional requirements for one to undergo SMILE Eye Surgery, such as:

Your eyes and cornea should be in a healthy state.

Your astigmatism should be less than three diopters.

Your eye prescription should not have changed in the past twelve months.

It would be best if you were at least 22 years old.

Your myopia should be between -1 to -10.

It would be helpful if you had realistic expectations about what SMILE can and cannot do for you.

The above requirements will increase the likelihood of a safe and successful procedure.

Who should not undergo SMILE Eye Surgery?

SMILE Eye Surgery in Delhi is still a very new procedure, so the experience with it is minimal. The process is safe for only astigmatism and myopia. However, this procedure is not appropriate for everyone because some health conditions can make you not the perfect candidate for surgery. Some of the conditions that may hinder you from the surgery include pregnancy or breastfeeding, uncontrolled diabetes, scars on the cornea, earlier eye surgery or disease, irregular astigmatism, cataracts in one or both eyes, excessive scarring or keloid formation, and thin corneas.

What are the risks of SMILE Eye Surgery?

Like any other type of surgery, SMILE surgery also comes with risks that one should know. Some of the risks are; there could be inflammation or infection within the treated area, debris where the corneal disc was extracted from, seeing halos around lights and glare, especially at night, and retreatment, which must be done with surface PRK.

Keep in mind that this procedure is not a must-have for everyone in Delhi because some people are happy with wearing glasses or contact lenses. You can weigh the risks and rewards of his procedure with your ophthalmologist.

How many days off do I need from work to have this surgery?

You need to rest for twenty-four hours post-procedure and also the day the eye surgery is done. After the surgery, a maximum of two to three days of rest indoors is required for your eyes.

How is the SMILE Eye Surgery procedure?

An ophthalmologist will perform a complete eye examination to ensure that you do not have any eye problems, especially on the cornea, check for any eye disorders that may affect or worsen after the SMILE surgery, check your pupil size, and also your vision will be tested to make sure it has not changed in the past one year.  

SMILE surgery is an outpatient procedure, so you will not need to stay at the hospital overnight. Before the process begins, local anesthesia is put into your eyes to make them numb. This procedure is computer-guided, and it usually takes about twenty minutes, and both your eyes are treated.

A femtosecond laser is used to cut a small lens-shaped disc in the cornea, and the disc is extracted through a small incision that is about three millimeters wide. This process reshapes the cornea to exactly reverse the refractive error of the eyes.

How to prepare for the day of the SMILE surgery?

Please communicate with the person who will drive you home after the surgery to keep them updated. Dress warm and comfortable as the treatment area will be cold. Do not wear any cologne, perfume, hairspray, or aftershave on this day. Do not apply any foundation or eye makeup on surgery day, and also ensure to have removed all the eye makeup the night before. Keep time on this day, and feel free to bring your phone to only listen to music as you pass the time. Please note that while you are waiting or your procedure to begin, you shall not be able to read or work on your phone or laptop.

What happens during the SMILE procedure?

The SMILE procedure takes around twenty minutes. Your eyes will be numbed with anesthetic eye drops. Your eyelids will be kept open to avoid blinking with an eyelid holder. A suction ring lifts and flattens the cornea, which helps to keep the eye from moving; then, the laser then it is programmed with specific measurements for your eye. The laser begins to sculpt a disc-shaped like a piece of cornea below the surface of your eye. One complete laser treatment takes about thirty seconds. It then makes a small incision in your cornea that now gives your eye surgeon access to the disc that the laser had formed earlier. The disc-shaped piece of the cornea is removed through the incision, and this process reshapes your cornea.

What happens after the SMILE procedure?

The first thing to keep in mind is that although this is an outpatient procedure, you will need someone to drive you home after the surgery. This is because, after the SMILE Eye Surgery, your vision may be blurry, but as you heal over the next few days to weeks, your vision will improve gradually. After the surgery, you should relax and take a nap for the rest of the day.

During this time, you may experience a gritty or sandy feeling in the eye and sensitivity to light. Your eye surgeon will prescribe to you some eye drop medicine that you should ensure to use as instructed. Although it’s not mandatory, you may take 1000mg of Vitamin C supplements seven days pre- and post-operation to assist in the healing process. After about two to three days, you can now resume doing your normal activities, and you should also remember to avoid getting any water in your eyes for a few days until you are fully healed.

Are there follow-up visits?

After the SMILE Eye Surgery, the next exam will be the following day. All your follow-up visits will be with your ophthalmologist or an associate doctor. Your ophthalmologist will perform a complete examination with dilation three months post-operation.

What are some of the complications with SMILE Eye Surgery?

During the SMILE surgery, complications that arise have been infrequently reported, thus supporting the reported predictability and safety of the procedure. Studies have found small tears at the incision, abrasions, and perforated caps in just a few cases, but none of these patients had late visual symptoms. There is a loss of suction that may happen during the femtosecond laser portion, and it seems a complex topic to define care that applies to most cases. A similar study also showed that the surgeon reapplied in the same setting in most cases where the suction loss occurred. In most eye surgery cases, there is an occurrence of post-operative dry eye, but SMILE surgery compared to LASIK

What are some of the SMILE Eye Surgery benefits?

Research shows that SMILE Eye Surgery might be able to correct very high amounts of nearsightedness than LASIK, with less risk of needing an enhancement procedure to attain a perfect correction.

During SMILE Eye Surgery, a small incision is made, and this may enable the cornea to maintain more of its strength and resistance to any traumatic injuries that are prone to occur after the procedure as compared to LASIK surgery.

95% of all people who have undergone the SMILE Eye Surgery but one had uncorrected visual acuity of 20/40 or 88% had visual acuity of 20/20 or even much better.

Some studies have also shown that with SMILE Eye Surgery, there may be less risk of dry eye symptoms after the surgery. This is because SMILE Surgery does not require a sizeable corneal flap, thus affecting fewer corneal nerves.

When will you see SMILE surgery results?

The vision recovery from SMILE Eye Surgery is almost instant. A day after the surgery, most patients report seeing 6/6, 20/20, or even better. However, your vision will continue to improve within the first week and a month or so after the surgery.

What are some of the side effects of SMILE Eye Surgery?

SMILE Eye Surgery carries the risk of overcorrection or under-correction, meaning you may have to continue using contact lenses or wearing glasses. During the procedure, you may be prone to corneal abrasions or small tears at the incision site, thus carrying a risk. The good thing is that these complications are minor and will not affect your vision in the long term.

During SMILE Eye Surgery, the patient is under local anesthesia that numbs your eyes, and when the anesthesia wears off, you are likely to feel some discomfort, tearing, or eye redness. It is also expected that a patient may experience a gritty sensation or pain that may last up to six to twelve hours.

Why do eye patients prefer SMILE to LASIK surgery?

Most complications that happen during LASIK are due to flap, and in SMILE surgery, there are no flap or flap-related complications. Some data shows that the corneal flap never heals. SMILE is painless, and it also gives high stability in the long term, with very few chances of coming back to see an ophthalmologist.