Are you an ideal Candidate for LASIK Surgery?

LASIK eye surgery is an excellent option for patients who wish to decrease or eliminate their dependence on glasses or contact lenses. However, in order to be considered appropriate candidates for LASIK, patients' existing vision defects must fall within an acceptable LASIK correction range and must not have changed considerably for at least one year prior to surgery.

The amount of refractive error that a patient can overcome with LASIK depends on a number of factors, including the skill of the surgeon, the parameters of the chosen Excimer laser and the central thickness of the patient's cornea.

Currently accepted correction ranges for standard LASIK treatment of refractive defects are as follows:

Myopia: the standard range for LASIK extends from -0.75 to -10.0 D (diopters) of shortsightedness, with an extended range up to -12.0 D of shortsightedness.

Hyperopia: LASIK has been FDA approved for correction of farsightedness up to +6 D. However, LASIK results are more predictable for corrections up to + 4 D.

Astigmatism: between +/- 0.75 to +/- 4.00 D can be corrected by LASIK.

While LASIK has been used with some success to correct refractive errors beyond these ranges, many surgeons limit LASIK correction to levels lower than those used a few years ago. Years of clinical data support the conclusion that more precise results are obtained from LASIK surgery in lower ranges than in higher ranges of correction.

In addition, alternatives to LASIK now exist for people with higher degrees of refractive defects. With new ranges of approval for higher corrections in Wavefront-guided LASIK, patients needing higher levels of correction may now benefit from improvements similar to those enjoyed by patients with lower levels of myopic and hyperopic corrections over the past several years.

In addition to the corrective parameters available to prospective LASIK candidates, patients should also meet the following general criteria:

• Patients should be 18 years or older and in good general health
• Patients' eyes should be healthy i.e., no dry eye disease, infection or glaucoma
• Eye refraction should be stable for at least one year
• Patients should not be taking any prescribed medication such as oral prednisone
• Patients should be neither pregnant nor nursing
• Patients should be suffering from no autoimmune or degenerative diseases.