Lasik eye surgery is not technically possible to conduct for all the eye patients. There is a criteria followed by the Lasik medical centers and surgeons to qualify the patients accordingly. Though most of the Lasik patients prefer to go for this surgery, it may not be the case that everyone can undergo this process.
Criteria to Qualify for Lasik Eye Surgery
There are a certain criteria, which have to be followed by every Lasik medical center. Then only the success rate of the Lasik surgery can be optimal.
- The operating eye must be enough healthy.
It is important that the eye has to be healthier without any severe problems, except refractive error problem, so that the eye can respond to the Lasik eye surgery and then heals properly after the procedure. in case any problems are associated with the surgery, the potential patient has to wait, until that condition or problem is resolved.
In addition to that in case of any dry eye condition, where enough tears are not produced naturally to lubricate the eyes, the surgery may aggravate the dry eye problem. Dry eyes include the problems of stinging and burning of eye, reduced wind tolerance and intermittent blurry vision.
During the pre-assessment, this condition can be detected and so usually, surgeon would identify the problem and takes the decision accordingly.
- The cornea’s thickness must be sufficient
Most of the laser refractive corrective procedures are performed to improve visual acuity through cornea reshaping. Thin cornea or irregular surface of the cornea may compromise the results and vision impairment may be a negative outcome.
However, there are certain exceptions that femtosecond laser, in place of microkeratome can manage the procedure with thinner cornea, to a certain a level, because of recent advances. It can also preserve enough tissue over the cornea after the laser treatment.
- The prescription of the patient has to be within certain limits.
In case the prescription is too high, because of astigmatism, farsightedness or nearsightedness, Lasik procedure may be advised by the surgeon. Based on the degree of the prescription, eye doctor prescribes the surgery accordingly.
- The age of the eye patients should be certain limits.
The patient must be within 21 to 40s. though there is no upper age limit, 40 is usually considered as so, because after 40, though refractive errors are corrected, there can be other eye related vision problems that still leave the vision poor. So, in most of the cases laser eye surgery is conducted for the patients, in between 20 to 40 years. Usually, presbopia, which is prominent vision problem for people above 40 years, can also be operated by monovision Lasik. So, for above 40 years of age, other Lasik procedure is selected recommended.
- The vision has to be enough stable.
Young adults and teenagers usually experience continuous changes in the prescription of their eyeglasses and contact lens prescription, from one year to the next year. To get the laser refractive error correction procedure performed, the vision has to be stable for minimum of 12 months, before the patient goes through the laser refractive eye surgery. So, younger people have wait until the eye vision gets settled down. Stability of vision can be discovered by observing the prescription for one year before.
- Overall health of the patient has to be good enough.
There are certain contraindications to the laser eye surgery, such as uncontrolled autoimmune diseases, like rheumatoid arthritis, AIDS, type 1 diabetes, Sjogren’s syndrome and other uncontrolled degenerative conditions. These people have trough in terms of healing and the risk of unsatisfactory laser eye surgergy outcome is higher.
Apart from the above, certain medications, like immunosuppressant also could interfere healing after the surgery and some of them may increase dry eye syndrome to next degree.
- The patient has to wait for sometime, if she is pregnant.
Pregnant women and nursing mothers need to wait for some time, until they cross that period, to undergo the Lasik procedure. It is because the shape of the cornea can be altered because of hormonal changes and may lead to changes in the vision temporarily. Pregnant women may suffer from dry eye syndrome and so needs to wait.
So, eye doctor recommends the procedure, only after the vision and hormones returned to normal state.
- Patient has to have expectations realistically.
Lasik surgery has higher success rate and outcomes are excellent and still every potential patient has to be aware of the risks, complications and side effects associated with the Lasik eye surgery, before undergoing the surgery.
When all these conditions are satisfied, eye doctors recommend Lasik or other laser refractive error correction surgery.