People with blurry vision often begin to evaluate if they meet the requirements for LASIK eye surgery. The only way to determine if you are an ideal LASIK candidate is to schedule a consultation with a reputable LASIK eye surgeon. During your LASIK consultation at Providence Eye & Laser Specialists, your potential surgeon, Dr. Mozayeni or Dr. Nunnery will evaluate your vision, the health of your eyes and analyze the structural integrity of your corneas, the clear front window of the eye. With this information and after having a conversation with you, the patient, your surgeon can then determine if you are an ideal candidate for laser vision correction.
During a LASIK eye surgery consultation, your potential surgeon will examine your vision status. This vision evaluation will include current vision both un-dilated and dilated, vision history and history of glasses and contact lens wear. Certain people with blurry vision may not be LASIK eye surgery candidates, however there are alternative procedures to LASIK that may be more suitable. Should your prescription be in the correctable range to qualify for LASIK, the LASIK surgeon will discuss additional qualifications to determine if LASIK would be safe for you and provide optimal results.
Prescription stability is one determining factor for who is a good candidate for LASIK. People evaluating whether they are a LASIK candidate must have a stable prescription, which means their prescription has not changed for at least one year. Although this is a critical qualifier for receiving LASIK, it is not as black and white as comparing your prescription year over year. Your potential LASIK surgery team will actually do mathematical calculations to determine if your vision is stable within tolerance. Having LASIK eye surgery with an unstable prescription will limit the longevity of the results of the LASIK procedure. If a patient’s vision is stable, then the results of LASIK have the potential to last 20 years depending on age and eye health.
It is important for patients with unstable prescriptions to not give up hope for becoming a LASIK eye surgery candidate in the future. By continuing annual eye exams, patients can track prescription stability over time, which may lead to a LASIK procedure down the road.
If your prescription is considered stable, next the LASIK surgeon will evaluate the corneas via corneal mapping (See image above). Using the state-of-the-art FDA-approved Pentacam, which is not typically available at most general eye care practices, our LASIK eye surgeons at Providence Eye & Laser Specialists can conclude whether you are a suitable LASIK eye surgery candidate based on the strength, shape and structural integrity of your cornea. The Pentacam allows LASIK eye surgeons like Dr. Mozayeni and Dr. Nunnery to measure up to 22,000 corneal elevation points. This is an important attribute that enables surgeons to examine every aspect of the cornea, such as thickness and general topography of someone’s cornea. If a patient has a corneal structure thick enough to undergo laser-based reshaping, LASIK eye surgery may be the best treatment over other types of eye surgery for blurry vision.
In addition to the three considerations for LASIK eye candidacy that we outlined, many personal factors are involved in determining if LASIK eye surgery is the best vision correction option for you. If you are a LASIK eye surgery candidate, make sure to have the procedure with a trustworthy LASIK eye surgeon who is highly trained, experienced, and an open communicator. Doing online research, reading reviews and talking to friends and family can also be very beneficial when making this an important decision.
If you are interested in learning whether you are a LASIK eye surgery candidate, schedule a complimentary consultation with a LASIK surgeon at Providence Eye & Laser Specialists.
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