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BENEFITS AND RISKS
Usually the day after surgery the floaters are gone or quite noticeably reduced. The improvement in reading, driving, and mental distraction can be dramatic. 92 per cent of patients report improvement.
As with any ocular surgical procedure, complications such as cataract, glaucoma (elevated eye pressure), hemorrhage, retinal tear or detachment, and others could arise. Very rarely floaters that are partically broken up or untreated may move to a location where they can not be treated further and will then be more noticeable than before surgery. Any listing of complications is incomplete. However, complications are very unlikely. In general, this is a low risk procedure. Our search of the world literature through the local hospital library, Med-Line source, and the National Library of Medicine revealed reports of 57 eyes that were treated for floaters with a laser. There were no serious immediate or long-term complication in any case. (For details see World Literature page of this web site.) (See Our Floater Study web page for Dr. Karickhoff's research series.) Dr. Karickhoff has been performing laser disruption of eye floaters since 1990 with a rate of significant complication of 0.10%.
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