Questions for your Lasik Eye Surgeon

Important Questions To Ask Your Eye Surgeon (continued)

To undergo Lasik eye surgery, or similar ophtalmic eye operations that use laser or refractive surgery is an important change to the eye. Just as you would not allow an unqualified back yard mechanic to fine tune a Ferrari, you should make sure that your eye surgeon is qualified and knows what he is doing. It's especially important that the surgeon has the necessary experience and that the eye surgeon operates regularly. It's not so important if the system used is Lasik, Lasek, Epi-Lasik or PRK. Althouhg it's important that the clinic uses modern equipment, the surgeon is much more important!

Thus it's a good idea to ask your prospective surgeon some questions about the procedures that will be employed, about his qualifications and operations, as well as about the surgeon's person. Naturally, you will need to ask for proof of his statements, and you might want to ask third parties as well. Use your normal everyday common sense, don't be gullible and you will most likely find a qualified and trustworthy eye surgeon.

If you know that you need special exams, that a particular surgeon can not provide, either go to an other clinic alltogether, or insist, that the examination take place in an other clinic / facility. Don't skip a necessary test or examination before undergoing lasik surgery!

A good place to get detailed information about Lasik is the official governement site: http://www.fda.gov/cdrh/lasik/.

Back to part 3 of the questions for your Eye Surgeon

Important Questions To Ask Your Eye Surgeon Part 4

Tests That Should Be Performed Before Lasik Eye Surgery

It's very important to have a thorough test performed on both of your eyes before any procedure is decided on. The eye surgeon should perform a complete refractive examination including evaluating the medical health of your eyes both before and after surgery. The medical part of the exam must be performed by an your ophthalmologist (medical eye surgeon).

Wavefront evaluation and diagnosis of existing aberrations of your eye(s) is the most important test before having lasik surgery! Wavefront is a procedure to evaluate the 'geography' of the eye in super-minute details, that can not be performed with any other test. It's not to be confounded with the Wavefront ablation process that may be used during the actual operation. Wavefront evaluation and diagnosis only prepares for the operation. The eye is never perfect, and small aberrations may influence the outcome of surgery, if they are not diagnosed and taken into account when performing the procedure.

Ask your surgeon if he will perform a wavefront diagnostic of your higher order aberrations prior to recommending refractive surgery? Your eye surgeon should answer with yes. Not every surgeon has the wavefront equipment to perform this test, in this case he should arrange for wavefront diagnostic at a different location and at your expense.

Wearing contact lenses changes the shape or your cornea, which would give wrong results when examining your eyes before the surgery. It's thus important to NOT wear your contacts for a period of time to allow the cornea to regain its natural shape. Ask your eye surgeon for how long he recommends not wearing contacts. The minimum period that he should recommend is four weeks if you are waring soft contact lenses, even longer if you wear hard contact lenses. Only if the eye is allowed this period to return to its natural shape will the calculations for surgery be correct.

• Measurement of cyclopegic refractive error
• Measurement of manifest refractive error
• Measurement of the thickness of the cornea

This measurement of the refractive error should include the test of cyclopegic refractive error (the eye is prevented from adapting) and manifest refractive error (the eye is allowed to naturally try to adapt and focus as best as it can). Only when performing both measurements will your eye surgeon know exactly how to correct your vision. An other important test ist the measurement of the thickness of your cornea, to determine if surgery can be performed on your eyes. Make sure your eye doctor performs all three tests before deciding about your surgery.

Important Questions For You Before You Decide About Lasik Eye Surgery

Pilots, policemen, people in the Armed Forces and others who depend heavily on an excellent vision should be careful before deciding on lasik eye surgery. In any case, ask yourself these questions and discuss them with with yoru exe surgeon:

Does your occupation or your leisure activities and hobbies have any bearing on your candidacy for refractive surgery? Yes! If any of your activites, professional or leisure, require excellent and detailed vision or if you need to have good low light vision, then you are possibly not a good candidate for refractive surgery. Your eye surgeon should tell you about the risks and rather counsel you to use other corrective measures for your vision.

Also discuss your medical history and any medication you are currently taking or have been taking recently with your eye surgeon. Some conditions that at first sight have nothing to do with the eyes may complicate your refractive surgery or may make it advisable not to proceed with it at all. The list below mentions the most important conditions, you should however discuss any health problems and conditions you may suffer from with your lasik eye surgeon.

In some cases your surgeon will propose that he operates your eyes to achieve monovision, i.e. to have one eye corrected for longer distances and the other eye for near vision and reading. This can be a great solution, but it's not for everybody. Some people have more problems adapting to it than others. It's a good idea to first only simulate monovision by wearing contacts specifically for this purpose. These contacts should be provided free of charge by your eye surgen and you should wear them for at least four weeks before making your decision if this is the solutiuon for you.

For women, being pregnant or contemplating pregnancy, and for women who are breast feeding their infant, it's important to know, that fluctuations in refractive error are often related to pregnancy and lactation. It's therefore not a good idea to have refracted surgery performed during this time.

When you think that everything else is covered and all questions seem to be asked, sum it up by asking this open question: "Can you see any reason why I would not have excellent refractive surgery results?"

This will allow the eye surgeon to once more sum up the discussion and give a short answer that must confirm for you that the surgery will provide the results that you expect and that are acceptable to you.

Talking to Previous Patients

It's a good idea to talk to former patients of your eye surgeon who underwent the same procedure as is proposed for you. Your eye surgeon should be ready to provide you with a list of people who are ready to talk with you. Naturally, he will only provide you with people who are happy with their outcomes, but they will be able to tell you about their experience. Try to get a list of people who were operated on recently and some that had their surgery about a year ago.

Getting A Second Opinion

After a consultation, never feel that you are obligated to use that surgeon. You are completely free to talk to other surgeons as well. And don't feel that you are offending anyone. It has long been an accepted practice to seek a second opinion, and most doctors would urge their patients to do so.

Back to the start of the questionaire for your Eye Surgeon

These professional associations also provide additional information and have certification programs for lasik eye surgeons: