LASIK and Refractive Surgery Give Our Troops the Combat Advantage

Service members are receiving refractive surgery to help them do their job better.

"We're the busiest refractive surgery center in the Air Force, performing upward of 4,000 surgeries in a year here, which is enormous amount of surgery," said Lt. Col. (Dr.) Charles Reilly, the consultant to the surgeon general for refractive surgery. "Our other big mission that we have here is research. We're actually trying to push the boundaries of what is known and not known about laser vision correction and what the potential is for the future in Air Force refractive surgery."

Patients will choose either LASIK or PRK based on their eyes and the benefits each procedure has to offer.

"The determining factors are the structure of the cornea," said Maj. (Dr.) Vashuda Panday, the chief of cornea refractive surgery. "There are certain guidelines we follow based on our research in the ophthalmologic community. It's really the structure and the shape of the cornea that determines what the eye is better suited for. There's nothing that says you must get one or the other. Really, it's your eyes that determine what you can get, and of course, if you have a preference and that matches up with your eyes. In other words, if your eyes qualify for one or the other, that determines which procedure you're going to get."

Another big deciding factor for patients is the recovery time from the surgery.

"(With) LASIK we're actually cutting a flap into the cornea," Dr. Panday said. "It's a piece of tissue that's lifted and actually placed back. With PRK, we're actually just removing the surface skin cells and then letting the laser do it's job. There's a slightly different healing process between the two, but that's the main difference.

"LASIK has a faster visual recovery, usually a day or so," she said. "It's a lot less uncomfortable overall. When you remove skin cells like we do with PRK, there is a healing process and also involved is some measure of discomfort. With LASIK, since we don't touch the skin cells too much, there is a faster recovery in terms of vision and (patients) have a lot more comfort and less pain over all."

The refractive surgery program is designed as a readiness force enhancer to help service members perform better in combat than they could with contact lenses or glasses.

"If you can see the enemy 100 miles sooner than the enemy can see you, you have the advantage," Dr. Reilly said. "We're about giving you the advantage in combat. We want to give you what we call the "combat edge" in vision. Just like when you upgrade avionics systems in an F-15 or an F-22, you want your radar to be able to see the enemy long before their radar can see you. That's how we look at vision. We're upgrading the 'avionics' of the human weapons system."

One recently "upgraded weapons system" is Army Staff Sgt. Stanley Arnold, a combat tactics instructor at Ft. Huachuca, Ariz. The infantryman, who wore glasses for the last 18 years, spent more than five months going through the process to get LASIK surgery.

"I think one of the biggest motivations behind getting the LASIK done was because of my job," Sergeant Arnold said. "When I'm not instructing, and I'm in a line unit, I'm an infantryman. Whenever you go out on a patrol it's critical that you're always ready at a moment's notice. But . . . contact lenses are not allowed, so you always have to have those different sets of glasses. You have to have your clear lenses, your dark lenses, maintain the inserts for your goggles, your protective masks. So depending on what the mission is, I always have to make sure those things are ready to go."

Even with glasses, Sergeant Arnold said his vision wasn't the best it could be to accomplish his mission.

"One of the things I don't like about glasses is that it takes away from my peripheral vision," he said. "Now, I know I'll get my peripheral back and that makes me feel better with deploying. Being an infantryman, I know for a fact when I leave (instructor duty) I will deploy eventually. I'm very happy with it. I'm on cloud nine."

http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123254704