LASIK Educational Material
Laser Eye Surgery
To your best possible vision!
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Cutarelli Vision keeps stringent standards for LASIK in order to ensure your Personal Best Vision.
There are 4 basic categories of candidates:
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Ideal LASIK candidate
There are certain factors that are vital to your being an ideal LASIK candidate:
- Age of at least 21 years
- Vision that has stabilized with a consistent glasses or contact lens prescription for at least 2 years
- Cornea of sufficient thickness and appropriate curvature - to allow the creation of a clean corneal flap of appropriate depth for LASIK.
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At least 1 of the common types of vision problems:
- Myopia (nearsightedness)
- hyperopia (farsightedness)
- Astigmatism (irregular shaped eye)
- Free of any disease, vision-related or otherwise, that may reduce the effectiveness of surgery or the ability to heal properly and quickly
- Adequately informed about the benefits and risks of LASIK
May be ideal LASIK candidate at a later date
Sometimes factors exist that may keep you from being a candidate immediately, but do not preclude your being a candidate entirely:
- Eyes that are not fully mature, which usually means less than 21 years of age
- Vision that has not stabilized with a consistent glasses or contact lens prescription for at least 1 year.
- Pregnancy or nursing
- History of ocular herpes within a year prior
- Refractive errors too severe for treatment with current technology*
*Current FDA-approval defines appropriate candidates as those with myopia up to -12 diopters, astigmatism up to 6 diopters and hyperopia up to +6 diopters.
Less than ideal LASIK candidate
Sometimes factors exist that might preclude you from being an ideal for LASIK surgery:
- History of dry eyes
- Medications such as steroids or immunosuppressants, which can slow or prevent healing
- Diseases that slow healing, such as autoimmune disorders
- Scarring of the cornea
Not a LASIK candidate
There are certain conditions and circumstances that exclude individuals from being candidates for LASIK surgery:
- Conditions such as cataracts, amblyopia, strabismus , advanced glaucoma, corneal diseases, corneal thinning disorders (keratoconous or pellucid marginal degeneration), or certain other pre-existing eye diseases that affect or threaten vision
- Collagen vascular diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis, or significant problems with wound healing.
- Refusal to give informed consent
- Not having realistic expectations
Dr. Cutarelli will then discuss the results of your evaluation with you. Upon your decision to proceed, we will schedule your pre-operative eye exam.
Next step: Your pre-operative eye exam .