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Laser Eye Surgery

Laser eye surgery has corrected the sight of millions of people worldwide and around 100,000 procedures are carried out in the UK each year. Laser eye surgery cost has reduced significantly over the past 5 years and the procedure is now safer and more accurate than ever before, giving people the confidence to go ahead and have the treatment.

The main types of laser eye surgery are Lasik and Lasek, with Lasik being by far the more common of the two, accounting for approximately seven times more procedures than Lasek. This is mainly due to the fact that Lasik surgery has a much quicker and more comfortable recovery period, meaning people can return to work and normal activities sooner when compared with those having Lasek.

Intralase Lasik is increasing in popularity and it is generally considered the gold standard in Lasik eye surgery. Intralase laser eye surgery uses a laser to create the flap, as opposed to a surgical blade which is used in standard Lasik. This means that Lasik Intralase generally results in a safer and more accurate procedure with fewer laser eye surgery risks.

Intralase Lasik, standard Lasik and Lasek can all be combined with Wavefront which yields even more impressive visual results. Wavefront laser eye surgery improves the quality as well as the quantity (how low down the chart you can read) of your vision as it takes into account all the tiny imperfections on the surface of your eye. Wavefront surgery is often recommended to people with large pupils as they are at a higher risk of developing night vision problems following laser eye surgery. Wavefront helps to minimise the chances of developing night vision problems following surgery.

Owing to recent development, laser eye surgery is not only effective at correcting distance vision but now offers new treatments to improve age related near vision deterioration. This natural deterioration in near vision with age is called presbyopia and typically occurs between the ages of 40 to 45 years old. The laser eye surgery treatments that can also treat reading vision are as follows: CK treatment, monovision laser eye surgery, laser blended vision and Multifocal Lasik.

Although laser vision correction can correct the sight of the vast majority of people, there are however still some people who will be unsuitable for laser eye surgery. This can sometimes be the case for people who have very high prescriptions that are beyond the treatable range of laser eye surgery. The two main alternatives to laser eye surgery are implantable contact lenses and refractive lens exchange.