My 18 year old son and I had LASIK surgery in July, 2000. My outcome is fine, unfortunately, his is not. I'll try to keep this as brief as possible. The bottom line is that we were told December 2 that his vision is uncorrectable at 20/50 OD, 20/40 OS due to irregular astigmatism. No further explanation was given and no hope for correction. We had accepted the poor vision during the first 5 months because we thought either time would lead to healing and improvement or he would have an enhancement. Of course, we know now that an enhancement does not correct irregular astigmatism. He had an appointment at Emory yesterday. The folks there were wonderful. We were told that the irregular astigmatism is being caused by multiple striae - one directly in his line of vision. They offered great hope for correcting the problem. I am very worried and hope you all can offer some insights. Though his vision is obviously awful, he does not complain. When asked he says he has constant ghosting and sometimes almost double vision. He actually sees better at night. (Larger pupil to look around striae.) He just completed his first semester at college and did very well. Has anyone had striae corrected this long post-op? What complications might we face? Thanks for any input. What a graduation present I gave my son.

In my experience, the most effective treatment for removing striae that have been present for numerous months is to suture the flap. What this means is - the flap is lifted, and then sutures are placed. The sutures put the flap on stretch. In my experience, flap suturing can provide dramatic resolution of persistant striae. Dr. Mark Speaker (who is from New York) spoke on his very positive experience with flap suturing for persistant striae.
Can I ask - did your original surgeon just not notice the striae? Why was nothing done?

Bill Trattler, MD
Miami, FL

Thank you for your encouranging reply. We have been for a second opinion and suturing is what was suggested. In fact, the new surgeon feels confident that he can take care of the problem and has experience doing so.

As to why the original surgeon did nothing - He has not been in the office to see us since our one day post-op visit. We did see the other surgeon there. He told us at one week that striae were common in patients with high myopia and they would go away as the eye healed. He also said that they do not relift for vertical striae because it does not affect vision. (My son has one directly in his line of vision.) At five months he said that he did not know what was causing the irregular astigmatism and considering that my son was -8.00 before Lasik that I should be happy with BCV of 20/50 and 20/40. We trusted them until then, but we prayed that we would not have to accept it and we started our own search for answers. Thanks to all of the information at this site and others, hopefully we will have a good outcome.