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• Light adjustable lens
• What is Laser Eye Surgery?
  • What is laser eye surgery?
  • Laser eye surgery procedure
  • Laser eye surgery results
  • Suitability for laser eye surgery
  • Laser for Astigmatism
  • Best laser eye surgery
  • Laser eye surgery & dry eyes
  • Laser eye surgery and night vision
  • Laser eye surgery Lazy eye
  • Choosing a laser eye surgeon
  • Questions to ask your surgeon
• Laser eye surgery cost
• Laser eye surgery risks
• Lasik
• Lasek
• Wavefront
• Intralase
• Laser eye surgery for reading
• Non Laser Treatments
• Refractive lens exchange
• Implantable contact lenses
• Eyesight Guide
• Macular degeneration
• Glaucoma

Laser eye surgery for astigmatism

People often wrongly assume that astigmatism is some sort of an eye disease and something that is not very common. However, this is absolutely not the case. Astigmatism is simply a type of prescription and is no different to being either long sighted or short sighted.

Astigmatism is extremely common with about 50% of the population having it to some degree. It can be corrected by glasses, contact lenses or laser eye treatment.

There are however a few points to consider about laser eye surgery and astigmatism and they are as follows:
 

• Both Lasek and Lasik can treat astigmatism and they have similar visual outcomes. Both can treat up to 6.00 dioptres (this is what prescriptions are measured in) of astigmatism, which means very few people will be beyond the treatable range. Less than 1% of the population will have astigmatism beyond 6 dioptres.

• If you have high astigmatism (over 3 dioptres) then most surgeons will insist that you have wavefront laser eye surgery. The reason for this, is that wavefront is the most accurate laser eye surgery technique and this is especially important when treating high levels of astigmatism. Also, Wavefront laser eye surgery has iris recognition technology which improves accuracy and minimises errors. Iris technology allows the laser to track any slight eye movements that you could make during surgery and compensates accordingly to ensure that the laser is being applied in exactly the right place. This is especially important if you have high astigmatism.

• The recovery period etc is exactly the same for treating astigmatism as it is for treating either long or short sightedness.

• The cost of treating astigmatism is the same as treating long or short sightedness. Wavefront is more expensive though and your surgeon is likely to insist you have this if your astigmatism is higher than 3 dioptres. Read the following guide for more information on laser eye surgery pricing: How much does laser eye surgery cost?

• The way in which the laser eye surgery procedure is carried out for astigmatism is exactly the same as it is for either long sightedness and short sightedness.

 

In summary, having astigmatism should not be a reason to put you off having laser eye surgery. The chances are that you will be suitable for the treatment and you will most likely end up with 20/20 vision following surgery. You can read more about astigmatism at the following link: Astigmatism guide

Got a question about laser eye surgery? Ask it in our laser eye surgery forum.

 

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Optimax are currently running a 1/2 Price Laser Eye Surgery Special Offer - just make your initial enquiry using the button below to qualify.

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