Gailey Eye Clinic

Laser skin resurfacing is one of the most popular cosmetic procedures for facial enhancement. Our skin has three main layers.

• Epithelium - the top layer that continually sheds old cells and receives new ones coming up from the middle layer
• Dermis - the middle layer with structures like nerves, sweat glands, oil glands, and hair follicles; and a matrix of collagen and elastin that supports the epithelium
• The sub-cutaneous layer - mostly fat cells for insulating the body and supporting the upper layers

The epithelium and dermis have several sub-layers. Laser skin resurfacing works on the epithelium, removing some or all of it, depending on how deep a treatment you have. This removal stimulates the dermis to produce more new cells. As we age, production of new cells becomes slower but a laser treatment speeds it up and also causes the new cells to be tighter and more youthful-looking.

For the laser procedure, you will be given local anesthetic and perhaps a mild sedative. The laser is passed lightly several times over the treatment area, vaporizing old cells instantly. Heat from the laser is warm enough to be effective but not so hot as to damage the skin. It creates a burn like a sunburn, pink or red, and with skin peeling after a few days.

During your initial recovery, you will have an antibiotic cream to protect against infection and soothe the skin. Sometimes a special synthetic skin might be used like a bandage. You will know these things before your treatment starts, as your doctor will explain the procedure and determine with you how extensive you want it to be.

When your new skin grows in, you will be astonished at how smooth and youthful it looks. It will be well to use a sunblock at all times, even on cloudy days.

To learn more about laser skin resurfacing and whether it would be a good option for you, please contact Gailey Eye Clinic today for a personal consultation.

What is glaucoma?
Glaucoma is the name of a group of eye diseases characterized by damage to the optic nerve. That nerve runs from the retina at the back of the eye to the brain. It carries information from the light-sensitive retinal cells and the brain will interpret it so that we know what we are looking at. When any optic nerve fibers are damaged or broken, their information cannot get to the brain and we lose that little bit of vision. There are over a million fibers and they run from cells all over the retina, converging near the center of the retina and leaving the eye in a big nerve bundle.

Most glaucoma cases are related to the pressure inside the eye, created by the eye's fluids. That is known as intraocular pressure (IOP). If fluid drainage becomes slow or partly blocked, pressure builds up inside the eye and pushes against the entire eyeball wall. That gradually causes damage to the nerve fibers where they leave the eye. At first there are no symptoms and a person can have glaucoma for years before they notice that they have lost some vision. Central vision remains intact at first but peripheral vision is gradually lost. Eventually, if nothing is done, blindness will occur and glaucoma is one of the world’s leading causes of blindness.

Could I get glaucoma?
There are some risk factors for glaucoma. Although there are rare cases of congenital glaucoma in babies, most often it is people at or past mid-life who get glaucoma. It tends to run in families so if your parents or grandparents have glaucoma, you are more likely to have it as you age. It also tends to occur more often among people with African background and nearsighted people. Sometimes an eye injury can cause it.

If you are over about 40, you should have your eyes checked for glaucoma and based on your health and risk factors, your eye doctor will advise you as to how often you should have that done.

How is glaucoma treated?
Most often it is treated with special eyedrops that help lower the IOP. Sometimes a laser procedure will be done to enlarge fluid drainage channels or create new ones to speed up the drainage and prevent IOP buildup. There is no cure for glaucoma but it can be well-managed to prevent any further damage to the optic nerve.

If you are wondering whether you might have glaucoma, do not delay in having your eyes examined. Once vision is lost through optic nerve damage, it cannot be restored. We will be happy to schedule a consultation for you with one of our glaucoma doctors, so please call or email our eye care office today.

If I have cataract surgery, will I need to wear glasses?
Probably not. The natural lens is removed in cataract surgery and replaced with an artificial lens called an intraocular lens (IOL). Years ago, IOLs gave clear vision either close up or distant but not both. Therefore you had to wear glasses for whichever distance range was not taken care of by the IOLs.

However, modern IOLs give clear vision at all distances. Each one uses different technology to accomplish this. ReZoom® and Tecnis™, offered by Abbott Medical Optics, are multifocal lenses. They have concentric areas built into them that react to light differently and combined, they bend incoming light at the right angles to give you clear near, intermediate, and far vision. The ReSTOR® IOL offered by Alcon, Inc. is also multifocal.

For the most part, these IOLs give good vision near and far but you and your eye doctor can discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each one and determine which one would best suit your lifestyle and vision needs. Depending on your particular vision status, you might need eyeglasses.

How can eye surgery help with glaucoma?
Glaucoma is the name for a group of eye diseases that damage the optic nerve and progressively disable it. That means that image information received by the light-sensitive cells in the retina cannot reach the brain, which means you cannot see those images. In most glaucoma cases, this optic nerve damage is caused by elevated pressure inside the eye. This intraocular pressure (IOP) is created by the fluid that fills our eyes and it pushes outward on the eyeball's periphery. The retina is part of the eye's back wall.

Glaucoma is treated by methods which either decrease fluid production in the eyes or increase fluid drainage. That achieves a proper balance and protects the optic nerve from further damage. Increased fluid drainage can be achieved by eye surgery. In Laser Peripheral Iridotomy, a small hole is created in the iris; in a Trabeculoplasty, the existing fluid channels are opened up a little. If further surgery is needed, a tiny part of the eye can be destroyed that produces fluid. These surgeries are all done with a laser.

If the above procedures do not work well enough, filtering microsurgery can be done. A little drainage hole is made in the white part of the eye (the sclera) that increases drainage.

When would a corneal transplant be needed?
A corneal transplant is surgery to replace the central part of the cornea when scarring or disease has impaired vision in ways that cannot otherwise be treated. Keratoconus is a progressive eye disease where the cornea becomes thinner and bulges forward, causing blurry vision. After other treatments like rigid contact lenses cannot give clear vision, replacement of the cornea becomes necessary.

Any time the cornea is irreparably scarred, a transplant may be the only way of restoring vision. Scarring can arise from an accident or trauma or from an infection such as Herpes. Sometimes there is corneal failure after another surgery and a transplant must be done. The new corneas come from donors and the procedure is painless.

You can do all your research online and then arrange a consultation with each candidate to see how well you get along with them. First do a search for something like "Eye doctor in Peoria Illinois", putting whatever location would suit you best. You will get lots of results and one by one you can look at the websites of each doctor.

• Look at the doctor's bio page, probably called "Meet Dr. XXX" or "About Our Doctors". Make sure he or she is board-certified to practice ophthalmology. Local involvement is always a good thing, showing that the doctor is known and trusted locally. Many doctors do volunteer work or serve professionally in local organizations. Professional memberships show that the doctor is in touch with peers and probably up to date with ideas and techniques. The best eye doctors do a lot of ongoing education, attending seminars and conferences, and perhaps actually teach the seminars or help to organize the conferences.
• Look at the webpage on the doctor's team or staff. There will usually be photos of everyone and some background information. There may also be photos of the building and rooms which give an idea of the office's atmosphere.
• See if the site has any testimonials. It can be very productive to read about other people's experiences with LASIK or other vision correction, or to read about how a person's eye disease was treated.
• Look at the procedure page(s) that relate to your particular eye or vision issues to see if it plays a central part in the doctor’s practice. You would want a doctor with good experience who would not be practicing on your eyes.

Once you have chosen the best prospects, you can feel free to call or email each one to schedule consultations. Typically those are complimentary and give you an opportunity to speak with the doctor, ask some questions, and form an impression of the practice. By the time you have had consultations with three or four eye doctors your decision will probably be clear and easy to make.

Dr. Lockhart is a forward-thinking doctor and has extensive experience in vision correction, treating cataracts, and various eye surgeries. Please see our Testimonials page for the comments of some of our previous patients. We have ten locations for your convenience and will be happy to schedule a consultation for you. Please use our Consultation Form.

Who is a good candidate for LASIK?
You would need to be over the age of 18 so that your eyes have finished developing. There should be no prescription changes for at least a year, so that your vision is stable. You would need to have good general health with no conditions that could interfere with healing. Your corneas (front clear covering) would need to be of a minimum thickness. That is because LASIK works by removing tiny pieces of corneal tissue to reshape the cornea and for your safety there must be enough thickness left after treatment.

Beyond these requirements, there is a gray area where your LASIK surgeon can make a judgment call. For example:

• If you are diabetic, you could be a candidate if you have it under good control
• If you are severely myopic, you might be able to have LASIK or ASA might be a better choice
• If you have presbyopia, an age-related progressive deterioration of near vision, you might be able to have LASIK monovision

Only your LASIK doctor can determine your candidacy after a thorough eye exam, study of your medical history, and various vision tests.

What is Custom LASIK?
Custom LASIK is LASIK done after a Wavefront diagnosis. The early LASIK procedures were based on the same diagnosis as glasses and contact lenses are, and provided only the same degree of correction they provide. With Wavefront technology delivering a far more precise diagnosis of each eye's vision defects, Custom LASIK can give a far more precise treatment. You will then have improved night vision as well as greater acuity of vision.

Does LASIK hurt?
No. We will give you numbing eyedrops before any treatment is begun. Also, our Allegretto excimer laser is programmed to work only on your designated treatment area and only to the depth your treatment plan calls for. The laser does not touch any other tissue. The procedure takes only a few minutes and afterwards we will have you relax in our office for a while, closing your eyes, until your eye doctor determines that it is safe for you to go home.

You will need a ride home and will probably feel like sleeping the rest of the day. When the local anesthetic wears off, you may feel some grittiness and dryness but we will give you moisturizing eyedrops to soothe that and you can use them as often as needed. You will notice vision improvement immediately and by the following day you can return to work.

Will my LASIK results be permanent?
Yes. Having LASIK is like having glasses or contacts built in to your eyes. However, as we age, presbyopia creeps up, giving blurry near vision. When that happens, we will talk with you about ways of correcting it. It happens to everyone after the age of about 40.

If you would like to schedule a personal consultation, please contact our eye care office today. We serve Peoria and Bloomington in Illinois.

The word LASIK was originally an acronym for Laser Assisted in situ Keratomileusis and in that name you can see that it is a procedure, Keratomileusis, that began before lasers and was later improved by use of a laser.

The man known as the "father of modern refractive surgery", meaning LASIK, was a Spanish eye doctor. His life’s work focused on how the eye focuses and on how to improve vision by changing how the eye’s cornea focuses.

Keratomileusis
Jose Barraquer took the first steps towards LASIK in the 1950s. He was living in Colombia at the time and working on ways to improve people’s vision by modifying the cornea – the clear front covering that is a type of lens and bends incoming light. His first approach was to remove a thin layer of the cornea, freeze it, reshape it on a lathe by shaving off tiny pieces, and then stitch it back in place.

By thus changing the corneal curvature, he improved vision. He named this procedure Keratomileusis, from Greek words meaning "cornea" and "carving". For the "carving", he invented a blade called a microkeratome ("small corneal knife").

"in situ"
With no calculator, and certainly no wavefront technology, he worked out his treatment plans with pen and paper. Later he devised a computer-controlled lathe that was more precise than his hand work. But the main problem was that freezing corneal tissue damaged it. Barraquer was a teacher with students worldwide and later he worked with one of them named Luis Ruiz. Together they devised a way to modify corneal curvature without removing it – modifying it “in situ”, in place. This led to the modern LASIK flap, which is folded back for surgery and then replaced over the treated area.

Laser Assisted
Meanwhile, an Indian-born IBM employee, Rangaswamy Srinivasan, was studying how organic matter responds to ultraviolet light. He worked through the 1960s and 1970s and in the 1980s began using his pulsed excimer laser to etch plastics. Many industries took this up and have given us inkjet printers, for example; but Srinivasan and eye doctors worldwide began using this laser for vision correction.

In 1988 the first PRK procedure (Photorefractive Keratectomy) was done in Germany. For the first time, a laser was used to successfully correct vision. Instead of a corneal flap, surface tissue was removed entirely and allowed to grow back after treatment. PRK is still offered by many LASIK surgeons for those whose corneas are too thin for LASIK. It is also called Advanced Surface Ablation.

In 1995 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the excimer laser for treating myopia of up to -6.00 diopters. In 1997, the FDA approved it for treating astigmatism; and in 1998, the VISX (now AMO) CustomVue LASIK system was approved to treat hyperopia.

Custom LASIK is now the most precise and sophisticated vision correction the world has ever seen. At the Gailey Eye Clinic, we use the Allegretto Wavelight Eye-Q Laser system which gives superb vision correction, far more precise than any correction achieved by glasses or contact lenses. Please contact our LASIK office if you would like to know more about laser vision correction and whether you would be a good candidate for it.