Are you tired of your poor vision? Have you spent years wearing contact lenses or correctional eye wear, only for your vision to continue to decline as time passes? Do you dream of a day where you can live uninhibited by glasses or contact lenses but worry because you suffer from astigmatism, myopia, hyperopia, or perhaps other irregularities, and are afraid this can keep you from going ahead with any correctional procedures?
Wavefront LASIK (laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis) could be the answer to your concerns. This procedure, basically considered a custom form of the widely-used LASIK surgery, goes deeper than traditional LASIK by using special equipment to take 3-dimensional measurements that better guide the laser used in surgery as it reshapes your cornea and fixes most, if not all corneal irregularities your eyes may have.
Because wavefront laser surgery was originally geared towards people with moderate-to-severe vision defects, it is necessary to be screened and qualified for the procedure before being allowed to undergo the correction. There are guidelines set up by the FDA that need to be taken into consideration, as well as factors such as your corneal thickness and degree of irregularities. And while traditional LASIK surgery itself can help correct common defects, wavefront LASIK and Waveprint mapping software has opened the doors so that even those with less-common and more serious eye irregularities can take part in a life less-dependent upon vision correction through the use of contact lenses or prescription glasses.
The number of patients choosing custom LASIK procedures over more traditional LASIK surgery is growing, given the fact that wavefront LASIK gives the opportunity for better results and less chance of post-surgery complications such as impaired night vision and seeing halos and glare coming off of light sources. The chances of achieving 20/20 vision (or perhaps even better than 20/20 vision) is also much greater due to the care taken to custom-map the procedure to your eye’s ability to process what it sees in the world around you. And with wavefront LASIK, the chances of your vision declining as time goes by is also diminished.
Custom LASIK — because it is a custom procedure and requires more in-depth treatment and use of special equipment unnecessary to traditional LASIK surgery — costs anywhere from $100 to $500 more than normal LASIK surgery, meaning an average estimated cost of approximately $1800 per eye. But, given the advantages of custom LASIK to the traditional procedure, many people seem to believe the extra money spent on custom wavefront LASIK is well worth it.