Am I Qualified To Have LASIK Surgery?

When considering lasik surgery, that's one of the first questions most people ask. What they would really like to know is: Will I be happy with my the results after my surgery? Unfortunately, there is no simple answer to this question. Even though there are general guidelines to help eye doctors determine who might benefit from LASIK surgery, each candidate must be carefully reviewed on an individual basis. Each operation is considered in terms of a benefit-to-risk ratio for that specific patient. When considering any elective surgery, it always pays to be conservative.

Figuring out if your qualifications make you a good candidate for LASIK surgery is as much an art as it is a science. The process itself is inexact, and there is no way your doctor could decide whether of not you will be happy with your outcome?

Eye doctors will be on the lookout for people with reasonable expectations, and will try to screen out patients who expect a guarantee of perfect results. Of course, what the laser does is the science. With excimer laser surgery, your doctor enters a specific set of numbers into the laser's computer, and the software does the rest, executing the instructions that control the laser pulses. How exactly does your doctor decide what numbers should be put in the computer? First, the doctor must consider how your age will affect your wound-healing response. Secondly, the doctor must enter all relevant data into the computer that will produce a result that will work for your individual eyes and lifestyle. It takes a great deal of experience talking with a great many patients both before and after each procedure to do this well.

If you currently wear contact lenses, your doctor will want to know if you are satisfied with the vision they provide you. If you are, then the physician can attempt to duplicate your prescription with laser surgery. As an example, if you are thrilled with your current vision using contact lenses that undercorrect your nearsightedness, your doctor can be more conservative in programming your surgical refraction. In other words, by targeting your vision correction at slightly under 20/20 in the distance, the risk of making you farsighted, or overcorrecting your vision will be diminished. After discussing your personal expectations, your job, and your hobbies - and studying your eye examination and history - your surgeon will pick the exact numbers to enter into the computer that, along with the answers to your wound-healing questions, will determine your future vision. This is the art of vision correction surgery.

Successful LASIK surgeons want to match your expectations to what they can deliver. Doctors look, and hope for indications that a patient is highly motivated to improve their vision. Striving to operate on people who will be pleased with their outcomes, ophthalmologists will often avoid performing LASIK surgery on anyone who expresses major doubts about a procedure. After years of observing patients' reactions to refractive surgery, physicians specializing in this field will begin to develop a "sixth sense" about who will be happy with the results, and who may not. No matter how long any surgeon has performed laser surgery, they will continue to constantly learn from their patients. This invaluable experience helps doctors identify people who should avoid having these elective procedures.

One key consideration in determining whether you are a good surgery candidate is the range or degree of your refractive error. Your physician will measure both your corrected and uncorrected visual acuity. If you are nearsighted, can you read the 20/30 line on the eye chart? Or, do you have to strain to see the big E (about 20/400 on some charts)? Generally, the higher the correction, the greater the motivation to have laser surgery.

LASIK surgery, unlike radial keratotomy (the older, non-laser operation), can improve, or correct a wide range of refractive errors, including farsightedness. Nearsighted persons currently can be treated if their refraction falls between -1 and -12 diopters - and sometimes, depending on the individual case, up to -14 diopters. Extremely myopic people need help the most. However, LASIK may leave some of these patients with an unacceptable amount of residual error, meaning that they still will need glasses for distance. So, if your correction is greater than -14 diopters, you may be better off waiting until medical technology has a little more to offer you. Although LASIK surgery could improve your vision, you probably would still require corrective lenses after the surgery.

Years ago, when doing refractive surgery before the modern LASIK surgical technique was available, doctors often had to tell extremely near-sighted patients, "We're sorry. You're not a good candidate for this procedure. We can only improve your vision about 50 percent." Some people would still respond, "I'll take it! If nothing else, I would like to have thinner glasses, and feel a little less helpless." They had valid reasons for seeking even a partial improvement in their eyesight. For them, any improvement was better, it need not be perfect. While other patients would say, "If you can only improve my eyesight by 50 percent, why bother having surgery? I would still have to wear glasses even if they would be thinner." For these patients, not having lasik surgery would be the correct choice.

Copyright 2006 Carl DiNello

Carl DiNello is an Article Author, and Website Owner whose articles are featured on websites covering the Internet's most popular topics.

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