Who Can Get Corrective Eye Surgery

In the years since it was first developed corrective eye surgery for vision problems has become immensely popular. The first correct eye surgeries were developed in the 1980s and today there are about a half dozen corrective eye surgeries available. There were some problems with the early procedures, but the used today are very safe and effective, with few side effects.

While many people have benefited from corrective eye surgery, not everyone is good candidate for it.

Who Should Not Have Corrective Eye Surgery:

Corrective eye surgery can fix problems of far-sightedness or near sightedness and presbyopia. However people with severe glaucoma should not have corrective eye surgeries. Macular degeneration also cannot be treated with these procedures.

Anyone under the age of 18 is not eligible for corrective eye surgery because their vision hasn’t settled, and pregnant women usually have some change in their vision due to hormones and should wait until after giving birth to have any elective eye surgery.

A person whose vision is still changing is not a good candidate for corrective eye surgery. Most eye doctors recommend that a person be using the same prescription for at least a year or two before considering surgery.

Who Can Have Corrective Eye Surgery:

Corrective eye surgery most effective for people with either near-sightedness or far-sightedness, there are no corrective eye surgeries that can treat both conditions, though some people have had good results with monovision, where one eye is corrected for nearsightedness and the other is corrected for farsightedness. Some corrective eye surgeries can also help presbyopia.

People who have had the same prescription strength for several years are good candidates for corrective eye surgery. Some individual features such as the shape of the cornea and pupil size affect which corrective eye surgeries will work best for a person, but in general there is a procedure for almost anyone with stable prescription strength.

Astigmatism does not interfere with modern corrective eye surgery techniques.