Many people long to have better vision, as good eyesight can have a profound effect on your quality of life. Luckily, there are many options that can accomplish this goal.
Glasses are a common and relatively easy solution for poor eyesight. They are practical, seemingly inexpensive, and easy to acquire.
However, they have some definite drawbacks. First of all, there is no hiding them.
They are obvious on your face and affect the way you present yourself. For many people, this is enough to make them look into other options.
However, glasses can also break easily or become lost, which may prevent you from enjoying certain aspects of life. Contact lenses solve one of the significant problems of glasses.
They are placed directly in your eyes and are essentially invisible. However, they come with a price.
Contacts need to be replaced frequently, sometimes daily, which becomes expensive fast. Furthermore, they can become uncomfortable and may even damage the eye if they are not properly cleaned and replaced.
There is a third, more permanent choice that can allow you to significantly reduce your dependence on other visual aids: refractive surgery. Refractive surgery has been around for a long time and has become more effective.
Refractive surgery corrects your refractive error at the source of the problem, allowing you to experience greater visual freedom. There are many different types of refractive procedures, but the most popular one is LASIK.
Keep reading to learn more about LASIK, including why you should choose this procedure for greater visual freedom!
What is LASIK and How Does It Work?
LASIK is a refractive surgery that corrects your natural refractive error. For most people who have experienced blurry vision most of their life, it is often the result of refractive errors.
These include nearsightedness, farsightedness, and astigmatism. Refractive errors affect how light bends inside your eye, making images blurry at certain distances or distorting vision in general.
Refractive errors are typically caused by a misshapen cornea or an eye that is too short or too long. The cornea is responsible for about three quarters of the eye’s focusing power.
When the curvature is off by even a little bit, your eyesight is strongly affected. For example, a cornea that is too steep and rounded will cause light to come into focus too early, resulting in myopia.
Hyperopia is the result of the opposite corneal shape. If the cornea is too flat, the light focuses behind the retina.
Astigmatism is caused by a cornea that is irregularly shaped, usually shaped like a football instead of a standard spherical shape. To reshape the cornea, LASIK surgeons need to remove small amounts of tissue in certain places around the cornea.
However, it is not as simple as reshaping the surface of the cornea. The cornea is made up of several layers.
The layer that your LASIK surgeon will be mostly concerned with is the middle layer. This layer is by far the thickest and can typically handle losing some of its tissue safely.
To reach the middle layer of tissue, your LASIK surgeon opens the top layer like a trapdoor using a femtosecond laser. Once inside, they use an excimer laser to blast away microscopic amounts of tissue until they achieve the desired results.
At the end of the surgery, the top layer is repositioned and quickly reattaches without the need for stitches.
What Are The Benefits of LASIK?
There are many benefits to choosing LASIK. First, LASIK is safe.
While all surgery involves risk, LASIK has been proven to be very low risk. Modern LASIK is done using advanced computer software to map out the cornea.
This allows LASIK surgeons to deliver incredible results with minimal risk of human error. Secondly, LASIK is effective.
Vision results are typically 20/20 or better, and even if you don’t achieve the vision goal you hoped for, you will likely be much less dependent on glasses. Lastly, LASIK makes life more fun.
Depending on glasses and contacts gets in the way of life. LASIK lets you access the eyesight you deserve at all times.
Am I a Good Candidate for the Procedure?
Unfortunately, not everyone is a candidate for LASIK. One of the reasons LASIK is successful is because LASIK surgeons work hard to ensure the person getting it is a good candidate.
Above everything else, your safety will be prioritized. A good candidate has to have many specific qualities:
- They must be at least eighteen years old, preferably in their mid-twenties
- Their eyesight must be stable
- Their eyes must be healthy
- They must be free from health conditions that affect their immune system
- Their corneas must be thick enough
- They must have realistic expectations for their outcome
You will get a complete list of eligibility requirements during a LASIK consultation. The LASIK consultation is also an excellent opportunity to ask questions and learn more about LASIK in general.
Are you ready to learn if LASIK may be right for you? Schedule a LASIK consultation at Westlake Eye Specialists in Austin, TX, today!
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