Word: lightful
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Nearly everyone who undergoes LASIK experiences at least some glare and halos, usually at night or under fluorescent lights. This occurs because the pupil widens in dim light, allowing incoming light to pass through both the corrected and uncorrected sections of the cornea, creating either a blinding or a hazy image. The problems usually diminish within six months. The best guess is that 5% of patients continue to be substantially bothered by glare and halos over the long term...
...wants to undergo the knife, so they look at the laser as some sort of magic wand," says Joan Kron, 71, author of Lift: Wanting, Fearing and Having a Facelift, her 1998 primer on facial surgery. "It's a very exciting field. But it's a double-edged 'light' sword, because there's a lot of bamboozling out there...
Even setting aside the hucksterism, laser surgery is hardly a risk-free procedure. Lasers work by emitting a powerful beam of light that vaporizes skin. Though some newer lasers can skip the top layer, or epidermis, penetrating to the lower dermis to kill abnormalities and hair follicles, lasers "wound" the skin to some degree, and healing can have complications. Long-term effects can include pigmentation changes in the skin: patients with darker complexions, such as African Americans or those of Mediterranean origin, are especially susceptible to skin lightening. And everyone is vulnerable to doctors or technicians who do not handle...
...Erbium laser to zap the crow's-feet around her eyes. "It's unbelievable. It took 10 minutes, and then you go home," says Bank, whose husband David, a dermatologist, did the work. "No hospital, no anesthesia, no stitches. It's just a little beam of light and it's gone...
...wine stains and other blemishes. Doctors now believe these lasers work better in children than in adults, but they can help diminish unsightly scars and red stretch marks left over from childbirth or breast surgery. Lasers can also soften acne scars, though removing the scars altogether is difficult. Green-light lasers are effective at zapping broken blood vessels and spider veins on the face, hands and neck. But the process can be painful--just ask tough guy Mark Anfangar, 44, vice president of a Los Angeles party-equipment-rental company, who underwent some 1,000 zaps in one session alone...