Mornings are hectic as you get ready for the day, but imagine if you can meet them without having to fumble for glasses or get your contacts in. Instead, you jump out of bed and the world around you is clear and focused, helping you to be the same.
If this scenario sounds ideal, or you want to ditch the glasses or contacts for other reasons, it might be time to explore LASIK surgery.
At Vision and Ortho-K, Dr. Curtis Frank and our team offer LASIK consulting services, which is the first step toward gaining perfect vision and getting rid of corrective lenses.
If you’re among the more than 230 million people in the United States who have a vision problem, read on to learn about whether LASIK can help.
Laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis — or LASIK — has been around for about 25 years in the US, and the procedure has helped millions of people to gain better vision without corrective lenses.
When you have a vision problem, we call it a refractive error, which means your eye isn’t bending light properly and doesn’t focus it onto the center of your retina. In most cases, the reason why your eye isn’t able to bend light correctly is because of misshapen corneas.
With LASIK, your ophthalmic surgeon uses a laser to reshape your corneas so they focus light better onto your retinas.
LASIK is a great solution for most refractive errors, including myopia (nearsightedness), hyperopia (farsightedness) and astigmatism.
As we mentioned, LASIK has been around for more than a quarter of a century, and it has an incredibly good track record. Since its approval by the FDA, more than 20 million LASIK procedures have been performed, and they’ve garnered a 95% satisfaction rate and a 90% success rate.
Undergoing LASIK surgery to improve your vision and ditch your corrective lenses is a decision only you can make, but our role is to provide you with helpful guidance.
Your first step is to come see us for an evaluation, during which time we can assess your vision and your health to determine whether you’re a good candidate for LASIK.
There are some conditions that can put LASIK out of your reach, such as:
We also want to expand on the first time on this list — age. LASIK isn’t available for people under the age of 18, but we recommend that you wait even longer — until about 21 or so. The reason for this is that your eyes are changing a good deal during this time, so we want to wait until they've settled into their “adult” form before undergoing LASIK.
As well, if your refractive error is severe or unstable, you might not make a good candidate for LASIK.
The best way to determine whether this procedure is right for you is to start the evaluation process with us. If we decide that you’re a good candidate, we point you in the right direction for the surgery and we provide you with guidance along the way, as well as after care.
To get started, please schedule an appointment at one of our offices in Boston or Newton Upper Falls, Massachusetts.
