Which Type Of LASIK Eye Surgery Is Right For You?
Making the decision to get LASIK eye surgery is life-changing, so it’s essential that you discuss your options with your LASIK eye surgeon. LASIK is the most commonly performed elective surgery in North America, giving you the freedom to live life without relying on glasses or contact lenses. In fact, LASIK eye surgery is considered to be the gold standard when it comes to delivering successful permanent vision correction around the world!
Before we go into the different types of LASIK surgery options available, let’s talk about what LASIK actually is.
What Is LASIK Eye Surgery?
LASIK stands for Laser-Assisted-In-Situ-Keratomileusis. This is when high precision lasers are used to reshape the surface of your eye, permanently correcting your vision if you are near-sighted, far-sighted, or have astigmatism, which is when your eyeball is shaped more like a football than a basketball.
After numbing eye drops are applied, a flap is created on the outer surface of your cornea. Pulses of invisible laser light will then be used to reshape the inner layers of the cornea with the utmost precision. Once complete, the flap will be repositioned and you will be free to go home. Regardless of which type of LASIK surgery you have, the procedure is painless and quick, with a fast recovery and minimal down time.
Our team, led by one of the leading LASIK eye surgeons in the U.S. – Oday Alsheikh, MD – has a wealth of experience and have carefully chosen to offer the premier types of LASIK to ensure the best outcomes for your individual needs.
What Types Of LASIK Surgery Are Available At TLC San Antonio?
Now that you know what LASIK eye surgery is, we’ll explain the different options that are available at our clinic in San Antonio.
We offer 3 main types of LASIK surgery: bladeless LASIK, topography guided LASIK, and custom LASIK.
Bladeless LASIK
Bladeless LASIK is a more advanced version of traditional LASIK surgery, where our eye surgeons use a femtosecond laser to create the corneal flap, thus allowing for pinpoint accuracy in creating uniform thickness across the flap. Bladeless LASIK also allows for smoother flap edges that heal faster, a lower complication rate, sharper vision, reduction in dry eye, and a reduction in nighttime glare and halos, all of which makes bladeless LASIK an even safer option than traditional LASIK performed with a blade.
Once the bladeless flap has been created, our eye surgeons use a high precision excimer laser to reshape the cornea. The procedure itself is very quick, taking only a few minutes for each eye, and it provides a quick recovery time too. Most of our patients are able to drive within 24 hours of having bladeless LASIK surgery.
Topography-Guided LASIK
Topography-guided LASIK is one of the latest innovations in LASIK eye surgery. It uses advanced technology to map different reference points on your cornea, allowing our eye surgeons to customize the procedure, so that even patients with irregular corneal surfaces who may have been previously told that they aren’t suitable for LASIK can now have their vision corrected with outstanding precision.
In addition to providing clearer vision, this type of LASIK surgery has been shown to improve the quality of nighttime vision, reducing the incidence of glare and halos. The recovery time for topography-guided LASIK is also reduced, so you’ll wake up the following day and experience even better vision than with traditional LASIK surgery.
Custom LASIK
As the name suggests, custom LASIK surgery is completely personalized to each patient’s eyes. This is achieved by measuring your eyes all the way from the front to the back using advanced wavefront technology – in other words, a special laser that creates a 3D image that we call a wavefront map.
This is considered to be the most advanced laser technology currently available, as it shows our eye surgeons how light travels through your eyes. Custom wavefront-guided LASIK allows them to computer-match the laser to your eye’s individual traits, creating a “fingerprint image” and allowing our surgeon to customize your LASIK eye surgery to your unique visual characteristics.
Having such a high level of personalization for your treatment can significantly improve the outcome of your surgery. Custom LASIK can provide the best distance vision, sharpen your contrast sensitivity and detailed vision, improve your night vision, and provide the freedom from glasses and contacts that LASIK eye surgery is renowned for.
LASIK in San Antonio
The type of LASIK eye surgery our eye surgeon recommends will be based on your general health and eye health, any previous eye surgeries or injuries, your prescription, an analysis of 3D imaging of the front and back surface of your eye, and your visual goals and expectations. We discuss all of this and more in our initial LASIK consultation, which can be scheduled at no charge and with no obligation. Why not get in touch with our friendly and expert team if you have additional questions – or go ahead and book your free LASIK consultation at our San Antonio clinic today?