Laser eye surgery treatment: Does laser eye surgery cause night vision problems?

Does laser eye surgery cause night vision problems? Well, driving at night is one of the most difficult things we have to do with our vision. You are travelling at high speeds with large dark adapted pupils and shards of bright lights from cars coming at you.

With modern laser eye surgery, we use large treatment zones on the cornea. So, that lens really goes to the effective edge of the pupil at night time. If we are performing a very large prescription treatment, some of the patients may notice a very slight increase in glare from car headlights which remains long term. But it’s so subtle and slight that when I’m questioning patients later, they really struggle to remember what it was like six months or a year earlier. Fifteen percent of our patients are very clear about the fact that night vision is better after the laser eye surgery than it was in their spectacles or contact lenses because the quality of the optics that are given are so good.

It is very common early on that there will be a little bit of light sensitivity from car head lights or even from the computer screen and that just reflects a recovering cornea and is a different issue. Laser eye surgery is almost like magic in terms of the rapid return to function people experience. I mean these people are like kids at Christmas first in the morning after the laser eye surgery, they are seeing things they haven’t seen before. They wake up and see the alarm clock and are excited about what they can see on their journey into the clinic. Their eyes are white. It’s almost like it’s all completely better. So it’s ninety-five percent in the beginning and the last five percent actually takes about three to six months. It’s over that period that minor issues like light sensitivity will vanish away.