When will I start to see SMILE results and how long will the results last?

Interview transcription:

In an interview, Alex Shortt discusses how soon you will start to see the results of your SMILE laser eye surgery and if they are permanent

Interviewer: Are there any differences that you can speak to in terms of the longterm results for SMILE? You mentioned already that if you did one eye with LASIK, one eye with SMILE, there’s no difference. But what about in the long term?

Alex Shortt: For the studies on SMILE, we have 11-year follow-up data, and on LASIK, we got 26-year follow-up data. These show that any changes happen in the first three months. To see any change whatsoever in the cornea and the shape and the prescription is incredibly rare and almost unheard of. I think it’s highly unlikely that patients are going to go perfectly normal for 11 years after ReLEx SMILE, for 25 years after LASIK, and then all of a sudden we have this epidemic, this outbreak of problems. It hasn’t happened and I cannot conceive of any way biologically or medically that that is even possible.

Interviewer: You’re not putting anything new into the eye. There’s nothing for the body to reject.

Alex Shortt: No implant. It’s just simply a reshaping of the curvature of the cornea, and then the eye heals. It’s like cutting your skin. You have a small scar, and that scar remodels over three months and then remains stable for the whole rest of your life. Have you ever heard of a scar 20 years down the line, but all of a sudden it’s turned into a monster? It’s a popular misconception that’s completely unfounded.

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