In continuation of yesterday’s post…
Besides the tests to make sure that you can safely have the laser surgery, there are some considerations you should have in mind. They basically break down into medical and lifestyle, but these are pretty broad categories.
For medical, you want to think about any medical you have or you have a family history of that might cause problems for you:
Like Mei S mentioned on Facebook yesterday, you should have a stabilized prescription. No point in getting surgery if you’re just going to need it again in a couple months, right? Most surgeons look for prescriptions that haven’t changed in two or three years. Luckily, mine hasn’t changed in about four years. A rule of thumb I learned is that by about 25, your eyes should have finished all the growth (and therefore size/shape changes) that they will go through.
My whole family has really bad allergies, so brought that concern up to the doctor. I was given generally the same answer by all the surgeons – it would be smart to avoid avoid getting the surgery during the height of allergy season, but they give you steroidal anti-inflammatory drops to use whiel the eyes are healing, and they should basically eliminate any potential problems. I just had to be careful about using the drops regularly and not rubbing my eyes.
My mom’s dry eyes were aggravated by her LASIK procedure, so I brought that up, too. The doctors performed tear tests and told me I shouldn’t have a problem based on those results.
Then there is the other category, lifestyle, which is possibly even more generic. Basically, you want to think about any work or hobby activities or environments that might cause problems with your eyes. Anything involving hot, dry, dusty environments or activities involving potential injury tot he eye or eye strain.
I told my doctors that I wanted to get back into martial arts and was worried about an injury to the eye. I got three basic answers.
The first answer was that yes, there is a very slight chance of injury to the eye, and you will find horror stories if you go looking for them. But basically, you have to suffer a significant hit directly to the flap they cut into the cornea to displace it and have a serious problem. If that happens, they can redo the surgery (after allowing time for the cornea to heal up first.)
The second answer was that if I get LASIK with IntraLASE, meaning the flap is cut with a laser instead of with a blade, it will heal better than normal LASIK and injury will not be a problem. Apparently, NASA recently approved LASIK only with IntraLASE for their astronauts. However, this claim was disputed by a couple other doctors I saw, who said there are no definitive studies showing better healing after LASIK with IntraLASE, so take that as you will.
The third answer I got was that instead of LASIK, I could consider similar laser eye surgeries such as PRK. In PRK, instead of cutting a flap in the cornea, the top layer of the cornea is actually removed and it has to heal back after surgery. Since there is no flap to potentially displace, it is a safer operation.
Oh, and of course, there is always the consideration of cost!
From the places I visited, I found that traditional LASIK should run about a thousand dollars. (There are cheaper places, but they are generally surgeons with less experience and/or less than state-of-the-art equipment.) Wavefront procedures run four to five thousand. (Remember, Wavefront is customized to your eyes’ specific shapes, not just your prescription, and generally has better results and fewer side-effects like impaired night vision.)
LASIK and PRK, if both are offered, should be the same price. (Both come in traditional and Wavefront forms.) LASIK with IntraLASE generally costs a little more than LASIK with a microkeratome, but it shouldn’t be more than a couple of hundred dollars, which you should be able to negotiate down to no difference.
If you have a very high prescription and need the Allegretto laser, expect to pay up to a thousand dollars more.
When comparing prices, be sure to ask about the costs of follow-up visits after the surgery, medications you will need while healing, and enhancement procedures. (Enhancements are when you go in for another round of laser surgery because you did not reach optimal results the first time.)
I think that’s enough to chew on for now. Next, I’ll compare the doctors I went to.