I went in for my LASIK procedure 6-Apr intending to have the first (right) eye corrected to 20-20 and the other (left) undercorrected to yield monocular vision. On the first eye, the flap was too thin (~60 microns). In fact, it was so thin that it tore off when the surgeon lifted it. My surgeon trimmed off some irregular edges and placed the flap back with a bandage contact lens and aborted any further work. The next morning, I visited my surgeon who was reviewing my videotape with a colleague to see what might have gone wrong. Suction appeared to be adequate so they had no firm idea as to what might have happened to cause the thin flap. In the process of changing the bandage contact the remnants of the flap went with it. Since then, the circular defect has closed (as of yesterday, 10-Apr) and I have been in for daily checkups to ensure the eye was healing properly, which it has been doing w/o any sign of infection of swelling of underlying tissue.

My questions are:
1. Is there a known reason for thin flaps other than loss of suction? My eye definitely showed signs of suction being in place (bruising) and I didn't feel any loss of it when the cut was made. My surgeon said that pressure measurements on my eye indicated that it was being firmly held.

2. My vision presently is quite blurry out of the affected eye when wearing my glasses. I presume that the mini-PRK my eye received has altered my prescription somewhat. How long would one typically have to wait for the eye to stabilize to a new prescription?

3. If I go back for further surgery (LASIK or PRK) to correct the eye to 20-20 as I had originally intended do you have any general advice to help prevent this complication from occurring again?

Thanks in advance,
Alan G.

Hi Alan,

I would like to communicate with you directly because what happened to you is very similar to what happened to me a month ago. I've been unable to find others that have been through this kind of thing. My vision is pretty messed up also! I think the sharing of information could be useful to both of us. Would you please email me at ?

-- Karen