What to Do When Lasik Surgery isn't Enough

What to Do When Lasik Surgery isn't Enough

Custom Lasik surgery

Custom Lasik surgery, also known as Wavefront Lasik surgery, uses detailed measurements to aid your surgeon in shaping your cornea. Custom Lasik uses individually customized, precise measurements, unique for each patient. Traditional Lasik surgery cannot give the same precision of individual correction that Custom Lasik can.

With Custom Lasik, your eye's ability to focus light rays is measured, and a 3-D map is created that demonstrates irregularities in the way your eye processes images. Information contained in the map guides your surgeon in customizing the treatment to reshape your eye's corneal surface so that these irregularities can be corrected.

How is Custom Lasik different from traditional Lasik Surgery?

Custom Lasik improves not only how much you can see, but also how well you can see contrast and fine detail. Both Custom Lasik and traditional Lasik Surgery can be used to correct myopia (nearsightedness), hyperopia (farsightedness) and astigmatism. But Custom Lasik is also able to treat the problems of glare, shadows, night vision distortion and halos.

How Does Custom Lasik work?

A perfectly shaped cornea allows light to focus evenly through the pupil and the light rays display evenly on the retina. A normal, less perfect cornea causes light to focus through the pupil at varying angles. These flaws in the cornea can cause light to strike the retina in irregular places causing halos, starbursts, glare or ghost like images.

Custom Lasik uses a special scanner to generate a very detailed, virtual map of your eye. This topographical map makes note of every imperfection of your eye and is unique, just like a fingerprint. Creating this topographical map of your eye helps your surgeon during your Custom Lasik surgery to improve your vision by knowing every detail of your eye.

How is This Virtual Map of your eye created?

Your surgeon will use a Lasik scanner to create a finely detailed map of the light rays as they travel through your eye, showing the imperfections in your vision. To do this you will be asked to place your head in the padded rest and stare past a target light, similar to a regular vision appointment. It is important that you relax your eye's focus as much as possible. Next a beam of light will be sent through your eye’s pupil and focused on the retina. These light rays then reflect back from the retina and measurements taken of the irregularities in the pattern of light coming from your eye. The Lasik computer uses these detailed measurements to create a 3-D map of your eye and any imperfections found in your cornea. This precision information will assist your Custom Lasik surgeon in customizing the reshaping of your cornea.

The map of a ‘perfect’ eye without imperfections appears to be a flat surface and light rays are reflected back evenly through the eye. The map of a less-than-perfect eye appears curved because some of the light rays reflect back from the retina sooner than the others or reflect back from different points on the retina. Talk with your doctor and together you can determine if Custom Lasik surgery is right for you.

By Beth Gabriel

What to Do When Lasik Surgery isn't Enough