What Are the Chances of Getting Glaucoma After Receiving Lasik Eye Surgery?

Glaucoma can occur after laser vision correction but is not a result of the surgery. And, your chances of getting glaucoma are not increased after this type of surgery. Prolonged use of steroid drops post-operatively, however, can lead to steroid-induced secondary glaucoma.

The short answer is absolutely not. The only possible way for either of these conditions to arise after LASIK is for the patient to have to use steroid eye drops for an extremely long time(longer than 6 months) and this is hard to imagine since our current postop steroid regimen is a tapering dose over a two week period. Obviously, we do not proceed with Laser Vision Correction(either PRK or Lasik) if the patient actively has cataracts or glaucoma, but, in the absence of that, there is no... more

I am not aware of any conclusive link between LASIK and glaucoma formation or progression. If one has advanced glaucoma then I usually recommend not undergoing laser vision correction surgery. If one has a suspicion for glaucoma or even early glaucoma, then laser vision correction can be considered but should proceed with some caution. In these patients, I prefer to perform PRK instead of LASIK because the eye pressure is temporarily raised, sometimes to very high levels, during the LASIK... more