Short answer: A year after LASIK, most people have little trouble with dry eye, glare or halos, but these effects are real and worth understanding before surgery. In a 2026 study of 300 people surveyed 12 to 15 months after LASIK on the Alcon WaveLight EX500 laser, 95% were completely or very satisfied with their vision. Glare, halos and starbursts were rarely bothersome, but only 54% had no difficulty at all driving at night, and 42% were still using artificial tears, most of them once a day (Lobanoff et al., 2026).
Focus Vision performs LASIK on the same Alcon WaveLight EX500 laser used in this study. The figures below come from patients at five US clinics, not from Focus Vision, and they describe what patients reported, not a guarantee of any one person’s result.
About the study
Dr Mark Lobanoff and colleagues surveyed 300 people at five clinics in the United States, 12 to 15 months after LASIK for short-sightedness, with or without astigmatism (Lobanoff et al., 2026). Key details:
- Who: people aged 21 to 35, with prescriptions from −1.00 to −8.00 D and up to 3.00 D of astigmatism. People with dry eye, other eye disease or previous eye surgery before LASIK were excluded.
- Treatment: wavefront-optimised or topography-guided LASIK on the Alcon WaveLight EX500.
- Questionnaires: a modified version of the questionnaire used in the US Food and Drug Administration’s PROWL studies of LASIK, and the Ocular Surface Disease Index (OSDI), a standard dry-eye symptom score.
- Published in: Clinical Ophthalmology, March 2026. The study was funded by an investigator-initiated grant from Alcon, which makes the laser.
Glare, halos and starbursts
These are the most common visual side effects after laser eye surgery: glare around lights, halos (rings around lights) and starbursts (rays from lights), usually most noticeable at night. A year after LASIK, the study found (Lobanoff et al., 2026):
| Double images | Glare | Halos | Starbursts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rarely or never noticed | 95% | 79% | 78% | 70% |
| Noticed always or often | 1% | 6% | 4% | 11% |
| Very or extremely bothersome | 0% | 2% | 1% | 3% |
| A lot of difficulty with usual activities | 0% | 0% | 1% | 1% |
Starbursts were the effect people noticed most often. For most people who noticed any of these effects, they were mild: few found them very bothersome, and very few said they caused a lot of difficulty with everyday activities.
Night driving
Night driving was the clearest difference. A year after surgery, 94% of people reported no difficulty at all driving during the day, compared with 54% at night (Lobanoff et al., 2026). The rest reported at least some difficulty at night; the paper doesn’t break this down further. If you drive a lot at night, raise it at your assessment.
For context, the earlier FDA PROWL studies found that many people already notice some of these effects before surgery, with glasses or contact lenses: visual disturbances were reported by 67% to 73% of people before LASIK and 50% to 60% three months after it (Eydelman et al., 2017, as summarised by Lobanoff et al., 2026).
Dry eye a year after LASIK
Dry eye is the most common side effect of LASIK. Creating the flap cuts corneal nerves that help trigger tears, so the eye makes fewer tears and often doesn’t feel dry; instead, vision blurs or fluctuates. Symptoms usually settle over three to six months as the nerves recover (AAO EyeWiki).
A year after LASIK, the study found (Lobanoff et al., 2026):
- 72% had no dry-eye symptoms on the OSDI questionnaire (a score below 12). The average score was 8.7, within the range for a normal eye surface.
- 42% were still using artificial tears. Of those, 71% used them once a day and 18% twice a day.
- 4% were using prescription dry-eye medication.
- 91% rarely or never noticed their vision changing in clarity over the course of the day, which is a common sign of dryness.
Earlier studies estimated that about 35% of people have dry eye after LASIK, compared with 57% before it, and that symptoms worsen in about 27% (Lobanoff et al., 2026). The study’s summary gives the no-symptoms figure as 71% (213 of 300) and its results section as 72% (216 of 300); either way, it is close to three in four.
How satisfied were people?
- 95% were completely or very satisfied with their vision; the remaining 5% were somewhat satisfied.
- 97% said LASIK had improved their quality of life.
- 98% said they would have the procedure again.
People who reported more dry-eye symptoms, glare, halos or starbursts tended to be less satisfied (Lobanoff et al., 2026). That is why these side effects matter, even when they are uncommon.
What the study can’t tell you
The authors and the journal set out its limits, and they are important (Lobanoff et al., 2026):
- No comparison group and no “before” measurements, so it can’t show how much LASIK itself changed these symptoms.
- People were surveyed once, looking back, 12 to 15 months after surgery.
- People with dry eye before surgery were excluded, so the dry-eye figures apply to people whose eyes were healthy beforehand.
- Only short-sighted people aged 21 to 35 were included; older people and long-sighted people may have different results.
- It was funded by Alcon, the laser’s manufacturer.
- These are US patients, not Focus Vision’s.
How we reduce the risk of dry eye and night-vision problems
- Checking for dry eye first. Your assessment includes the health of your eye surface. If you have dry eye, it may need treating before surgery, and a flap-free procedure may suit you better: dry eye in the early months is less common after SMILE-type lenticule extraction than after femtosecond LASIK (Shen et al., 2016). See Types of laser eye surgery for how LASIK, TransPRK and CLEAR compare.
- Planning the treatment around your eye. Ray Tracing LASIK uses the same EX500 laser with a treatment planned from a model of your individual eye. In a 2024 international study of ray-tracing LASIK, whose authors included Australian ophthalmologist Dr Chandra Bala, 97% of patients (103 of 106) were completely or very satisfied with their vision (Kanellopoulos et al., 2024). Three of its authors are affiliated with Alcon.
- Lubricating drops after surgery. Using your drops as prescribed for the first months helps the eye surface recover (AAO EyeWiki). Our recovery timeline explains what to expect week by week.
- Follow-up. Your price includes a year of follow-up appointments, and enhancements are free for two years under our enhancement policy if your vision needs fine-tuning.
For the wider picture on results, see LASIK success rate: what to expect. To find out whether LASIK suits your eyes, book a free optometrist assessment or call (07) 3239 5005.
References
- Lobanoff MC, Mann PM II, Parikh M, Brenner J, Hall B. Multi-site study of patient reported vision quality and dry eye following LASIK. Clin Ophthalmol. 2026;20:566803. doi:10.2147/OPTH.S566803. doi.org/10.2147/OPTH.S566803
- Eydelman M, Hilmantel G, Tarver ME, et al. Symptoms and satisfaction of patients in the patient-reported outcomes with laser in situ keratomileusis (PROWL) studies. JAMA Ophthalmol. 2017;135(1):13-22. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27893066
- American Academy of Ophthalmology. Dry Eyes After Laser in situ Keratomileusis (LASIK). EyeWiki. eyewiki.org
- Shen Z, Zhu Y, Song X, Yan J, Yao K. Dry eye after small incision lenticule extraction (SMILE) versus femtosecond laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis (FS-LASIK) for myopia: a meta-analysis. PLoS One. 2016. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0168081. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27992482
- Kanellopoulos AJ, Maus M, Bala C, et al. International multicenter, myopic and myopic astigmatism femto LASIK, customized by automated ray-tracing ablation profile calculation: a postmarket study. Clin Ophthalmol. 2024;18:525-536. doi:10.2147/OPTH.S435581. doi.org/10.2147/OPTH.S435581