If your LASIK surgery was months ago — or even decades ago — and you’re still not seeing the way you expected, you’re not alone. At Global Complex Eye Care in Baltimore, we have spent the past 25 years treating patients from across the country who were left with vision problems after laser refractive surgery. Some had their surgery last year. Others had it in the 1990s. The heartbreak is the same.

The good news: there is often far more that can be done than you’ve been told. Below are nine of the most common long-term LASIK complications we see — and how we help even the most complex cases find real relief.

Chronic dry eye is the most common long-term complaint we hear after LASIK. The surgery severs corneal nerves that control tear production — and for many patients, those nerves never fully recover. If you’ve tried every over-the-counter drop available and still feel burning, stinging, or gritty eyes by midday, there’s almost certainly a more targeted solution.

We evaluate the full picture: tear film quality, meibomian gland function, and corneal nerve health. Treatments range from prescription anti-inflammatory drops and punctal plugs to intense pulsed light (IPL) therapy. For patients whose dry eye is severe, scleral lenses are often transformative — they vault over the cornea and maintain a constant fluid reservoir against the eye surface throughout the entire day.

If headlights look like sunbursts, traffic signals bloom into halos, or you’ve stopped driving at night because it feels unsafe — this is one of the most debilitating post-LASIK symptoms we treat. It typically results from light scattering around the edge of the laser treatment zone, particularly when your natural pupil size is larger than the ablation area that was treated.

Using wavefront aberrometry and higher-order aberration (HOA) testing, we can precisely measure what’s causing your visual distortion. Custom scleral lenses — including HOA-correcting designs — create a smooth, uniform optical surface over the irregular cornea and can dramatically reduce or eliminate these disturbances where glasses and standard contacts have failed.

Seeing a faint shadow or “ghost” alongside letters, faces, or objects is a sign of irregular optical aberrations in your cornea. Ghosting often accompanies glare and halos but can appear on its own — and it makes reading, screen use, and recognizing faces genuinely exhausting.

Standard spectacle correction cannot fully address an irregular corneal surface. Specialty scleral lenses neutralize that irregularity and, for many of our patients, eliminate ghosting entirely — something no glasses prescription can achieve.

Higher-order aberrations are complex optical distortions that go beyond ordinary nearsightedness or astigmatism — and standard eye charts and prescriptions will not catch them. HOAs cause a range of symptoms: blurred contrast, washed-out color, visual “noise,” and an overall feeling that your vision is just not right even when your prescription measures fine.

We use wavefront aberrometry and Pentacam 3D corneal mapping to measure and characterize your specific aberration profile. From there, we design impression-based and HOA-correcting scleral lenses that are customized to your unique corneal irregularities — not an off-the-shelf solution.

Many patients who had excellent results after LASIK find that their vision slowly drifts back toward their original prescription — sometimes years or even decades later. This regression is more common than most surgeons discuss upfront, and it can leave you dependent on glasses again with a cornea that has already been permanently altered.

Before considering a LASIK “touch-up,” please seek an independent evaluation. Additional laser procedures remove more corneal tissue and can further destabilize the eye. We have seen many patients who came to us only after multiple surgeries made their vision significantly worse. A comprehensive workup — including Pentacam mapping and OCT imaging — can determine what’s actually happening and whether specialty lenses are a safer, more effective path forward.

Corneal ectasia is one of the most serious post-LASIK complications. The cornea — already thinned by surgery — progressively weakens and bulges forward, creating highly irregular astigmatism and significant visual distortion that gets worse over time. It can develop months after surgery, or it may not appear for many years.

Standard glasses and soft contact lenses simply cannot correct an ectatic cornea. This is precisely the kind of complex case we specialize in. Custom scleral lenses can restore excellent functional vision for ectasia patients by creating a perfectly smooth optical surface independent of the corneal shape. We also co-manage with corneal surgeons when cross-linking is indicated to halt progression.

Clear in the morning, blurry by midday, worse by evening — if your vision shifts through the day in a way that no glasses prescription can pin down, tear film instability is usually the culprit. When the tear film breaks down unevenly across an already-irregular corneal surface, vision fluctuates constantly. Post-LASIK eyes are especially susceptible to this because of compromised corneal nerve function.

A detailed tear film analysis and meibomian gland evaluation helps us identify the underlying driver. For many of these patients, a scleral lens — which maintains a constant fluid layer in front of the cornea — provides the most stable, consistent vision they’ve had since surgery.

Persistent sensitivity to bright light — indoors, outdoors, on screens — is a complaint that often gets dismissed as “just how your eyes are now.” But heightened photophobia after LASIK frequently has a treatable cause: corneal nerve damage, chronic inflammation, or unresolved dry eye disease.

Rather than simply recommending sunglasses, we look for the root cause. Corneal nerve mapping, anti-inflammatory treatment, and in some cases specially filtered scleral lenses can provide meaningful relief for patients who have struggled with light sensitivity for years.

This is the most common thing we hear from new patients: “I can’t describe exactly what’s wrong. I just know my vision isn’t right — and I’ve been told everything looks normal.” That answer is not good enough.

Subtle optical irregularities that cause real, significant symptoms are routinely missed by standard examinations. Our comprehensive workup — including Pentacam 3D corneal mapping, OCT imaging, and wavefront HOA testing — is specifically designed to find what others have missed. More often than not, we find something meaningful. And more often than not, we can help.

We do not perform LASIK surgery. Our entire focus is on helping patients who are suffering from its consequences. For the past 25 years, we have been developing and refining non-surgical approaches that restore functional vision — even for the most complex cases. Our toolkit includes:

• Pentacam Corneal Mapping – 3D analysis to detect irregularities invisible to standard exams.
• OCT (Optical Coherence Tomography) – high-resolution imaging of corneal layers and real-time lens fit evaluation.
• Wavefront Aberrometry & HOA Testing – precise measurement of the higher-order aberrations causing your glare, halos, and distortion.
• Custom Impression-Based Scleral Lenses – uniquely molded to your eye’s exact shape for exceptional comfort and fit.
• HOA-Correcting Scleral Lenses – designed to neutralize your specific aberration profile and restore clarity that no glasses can provide.

Don’t give up hope — even if you’ve already tried scleral lenses elsewhere, or have been told that a corneal transplant is your only option. The precision of our diagnostic process often allows us to achieve results that go far beyond what standard fittings produce. You can read about patient experiences on our Post-LASIK Testimonials page.