i hate wearing glasses and my eyes can handle contacts anymore so i am considering lasik surgery. how can you find a good dr?
LASIK Eye Surgery Portal
i hate wearing glasses and my eyes can handle contacts anymore so i am considering lasik surgery. how can you find a good dr?
I think the first step is to find a good doctor. Ask around, if you know anyone who’s had it done, find out where and what the experience was like. You can also ask the optometrist who prescribes your glasses or contact lenses — they probably know who’s good in the area and who to avoid! Your cornea is approximately the same thickness as the lead on a mechanical pencil, so anyone cutting into it had better be good — you only get one set of eyes, so risking them on the $399 back-alley surgery special is probably not the way to go. Besides, if you’re dropping a couple hundred bucks on glasses and contacts every year or two, you’ll make up the cost of the surgery within ten years or so. Find a reputable centre, one that’s been around for a long time, guarantees their work, offers free re-treatments in necessary, and see if they publish their success rates.
That being said, it’s not just LASIK. There’s PRK, LASIK, Custom Wavefront LASIK with IntraLase, epi-LASIK, LASEK… there’s a whole whack of different laser vision correction procedures that can be done. Typically, a surgeon will do PRK and LASIK, and maybe one of the ‘fancy’ ones. LASIK is probably the most popular procedure these days, because it’s relatively simple, painless, and provides good vision pretty much immediately. A flap of corneal tissue is created and peeled back, exposing the corneal stroma. A laser provides short controlled bursts of power, ablating tissue away until the cornea is the desired shape. The flap is put back in place, natural forces let it stick in place without any stitches, and you’re good to go. PRK is similar, but without the flap — they remove the top epithelial layer of the eye, then laser away underneath. The epithelial layer will regrow naturally within a few days.
Because of the differences in the procedures, not everyone is eligible for both. For example, if your eyes are intolerant to contact lenses because of corneal neovascularization (excess blood vessel growth) then cutting a flap for LASIK will risk bleeding, which could cause a bad result; the surgeon would recommend PRK. Lots of surgery centers provide free screening to see if you’re eligible and what your options are. The advantages of LASIK are that the healing process is quicker — you don’t have to wait for that top layer to grow back. The disadvantages come from that flap — you’re cutting through corneal nerves, so the eye is not as sensitive after surgery, especially for the first six months to a year. This can lead to dry uncomfortable eyes. Glare and haloes can also occur from the edges of the flap; again, after a few months the edges will heal and this should improve. PRK’s advantages are that there is no chance of any flap complications; the disadvantage is that it takes longer to heal (and is painful those first few days) and you can get some haze in your vision. (These days, surgeons use a medicine during surgery called mitomycin C to reduce the risk of post-surgical haze.) It’s kinda apples and oranges comparing the two — in the end, your vision is usually good with both, and the serious complications aren’t all that common. See what you’re eligible for, and ask the surgeon what they’re doing — some people are tending towards the newer technologies that give LASIK better results; others are tending towards PRK to reduce flap complications. They’re likely to give you a recommendation of what would be best for you.
How do I know all this? I’m an optometry student currently working with a corneal surgeon — we do LASIK and PRK, and fix other people’s mistakes, too. (A word of advice — if somebody tells you that you can’t have surgery, don’t keep trying different places until you find somewhere willing to operate on you!) I’m considering having laser surgery done, but I wouldn’t get LASIK — I don’t want a flap cut in my eye if I don’t need to; I’d rather deal with the pain and blurry vision those first few days. But, there are doctors who have had LASIK done and they swear by it, too. It’s a personal decision, and it depends what suits your eyes best.
Lasik eye surgery is very safe nowadays. My cousin got her dental implants and Lasik surgery in India by a company called Indian Health Guru Consultants. The Price for dental and Lasik surgery is very less in India. She paid 25% of the price she was quoted in America.
Indian Health Guru Consultants is very famous in India They arrange Dental surgery, jaw surgery, Lasik eye surgery, Dental Implants etc for foreign patients in India. I read a lot about them in the Newspapers and magazines- about their patient stories.
They arrange financing for USA, Canadian, UK and other international patients who plan to have surgery abroad for low cost, as dental and eye surgery is not covered by insurance. They also have photos pasted of their International patients. You can checkout their website. There are huge cost savings. As a doctor I personally believe that surgery can be easily handled in India, as the quality of healthcare available In India is simply best in the world. The surgeons are USA/UK trained and facilities are 5 star.http://www.indianhealthguru.com
Hope this helps
pros, I can see! I don’t need to decide if I need to wear my contacts or glasses when trying to swim, I can see to go to the bathroom at night…
cons…none that I find
pros: can see right 24/7
cons: might miss my stylish glasses