LASIK in HIV patients
I recently saw a question posted by an ophthalmologist about performing LASIK in HIV+ patients. The specific question was as follows (paraphrased):
For HIV+ patients with undetectable viral loads, do you perform LASIK? If you perform LASIK, do you put them as the last surgery or use extra precautions (such as double gloving)?
For laser vision correction in such patients, I don’t do anything special. I approach the laser vision correction the same as I do for every patient with our standard protocols. If the patient did not have a low viral load, it would of course be more important for the patient to have treatment for the HIV rather than getting laser vision correction.