Is LASIK Right for Me?
LASIK eye surgery can be the right treatment option for many individuals experiencing vision problems. To determine if LASIK surgery might be the right option for you, consider these questions:
- Are you having trouble with distance vision?
- Are you having difficulty reading or seeing well at night?
- Do you have depth perception issues?
- Are you nearsighted, farsighted, or do you have an astigmatism?
- Do you have no systemic illness such as diabetes, glaucoma, or rheumatoid arthritis?
- Has your vision prescription not changed in the last 12 to 24 months?
If you answer “yes” to any of these questions, LASIK may be right for you.
Am I a good candidate for LASIK?
In addition to the questions above, there are other considerations when determining if LASIK surgery is right for you. These considerations include:
- Age: Candidates must be at least 18 years old.
- General health: LASIK candidates must be in good general health and should not have certain health problems, including uncontrolled diabetes, autoimmune or collagen vascular disease, or take any medication or have any condition that compromises the immune response. Please make your eye doctor aware of any mental health conditions, as these may also affect your LASIK surgery or recovery.
- Eye health: Candidates should be free of eye diseases, including keratoconus, glaucoma, cataracts, corneal disease, and certain retinal and optic nerve diseases. LASIK surgery candidates should not have certain eye conditions, including herpes simplex and herpes zoster.
- Eye problems: LASIK patients should make their eye doctor aware of certain eye problems, including amblyopia (lazy eye), strabismus (muscle imbalance), or any recurrent, residual or active eye conditions that may influence healing. Other conditions that should be discussed with the doctor include keloid scarring with previous surgical healing, back problems, and claustrophobia.
- Eye injury: Patients should not have any eye infections or injuries.
- Dry eye condition: Patients should not continuously suffer from dry eyes.
- Stable vision: A candidate’s vision must be stable for at least one year prior to the procedure date.
- Contacts: Prior to your LASIK surgery consultation and LASIK procedure, you must not wear contact lenses for a certain length of time. The precise length will be determined by your doctor on an individual basis. This ensures corneal stability and accuracy of your prescription prior to the LASIK surgery procedure.
- Corneal thickness plays an important role in determining proper candidacy for LASIK. Due to the nature of the procedure, candidates must have a minimum corneal thickness of approximately 0.5 mm.
- Nursing/pregnancy: Candidates should not be nursing or pregnant when undergoing the LASIK procedure. Hormones may affect the stability of your prescription, so pregnant or nursing women are not eligible to pursue LASIK surgery until three menstrual cycles after nursing has been discontinued.
Determination for LASIK candidacy has to be made on an individual basis, taking into consideration your medical history, prescriptions, and other health factors.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is LASIK painful?
LASIK should not cause you any pain. Numbing eyedrops will block those pain sensations. Your eyes may feel a bit scratchy afterward, but no pain medications are typically required, and you should be able to return to work or your regular activities the next day.
What are the risks of LASIK?
Complications are rare, but like all surgical procedures, LASIK does carry some risk, including infection that may damage your cornea or result in some vision loss. However, LASIK is cleared by the FDA and is one of the most common and safest procedures in the medical field.
Read more frequently asked questions here.
LASIK FAQs
What makes you eligible for LASIK?
Several factors are analyzed before determining if you qualify for LASIK surgery. First, you must be at least 18 years old and in good health. Not just good overall health, but good eye health as well.
If you are pregnant or nursing LASIK surgery isn’t an option because this can alter your hormonal balance and the measured refraction of your eyes. Patients are also evaluated by what medications they are currently taking since they can interfere with LASIK surgery.
Eye health is fundamental to qualify for LASIK surgery. Your eye doctor will evaluate you for dry eyes, corneal thinness, pupil size (large pupils can sometimes disqualify you), and vision stability. Your prescription needs to have stayed the same (half a diopter or less) for at least one year before LASIK can be performed.
Also, LASIK is typically not recommended for people with presbyopia (near vision issues from aging eyes). Certain eye conditions (glaucoma and cataracts) can interfere with LASIK surgery and may disqualify you from surgery, as will eye infections and injuries.
The Mayo Clinic warns that LASIK may not be the right choice for candidates that suffer from:
- Autoimmune diseases such as lupus or HIV/AIDS
- Diabetes
- Rheumatoid arthritis
- Depression
- Chronic pain conditions (irritable bowel syndrome, fibromyalgia, or migraines)
If I’m not eligible for LASIK eye surgery, are there other options available to me?
If you aren’t a candidate for LASIK, you have alternatives! LASIK is only one type of refractive surgery available to patients. Many patients find vision success with various LASIK alternatives. Some popular options include:
- Clear Lens Exchange or Refractive Lens Exchange. An artificial lens will replace your natural lens. The procedure takes about 30 minutes to complete and approximately 12 weeks to heal fully. Both treatments are outpatient procedures with high success rates.
- Implantable Contact Lenses (ICL). Patients with high myopia, and insufficient corneal thickness, benefit from an ICL procedure. It takes a mere 15 to 30 minutes to complete.
- Photorefractive Keratectomy (PRK). Refractive surgery that reshapes the cornea using laser technology so the light entering the eye is focused on the retina to produce clear images.
Visionary Eye Doctors will discuss your different options and alternatives that are most suitable for your vision needs.
What results can I expect from LASIK eye surgery?
LASIK results will vary based on the severity of your myopia, age, and other factors. That said, LASIK surgery improves uncorrected vision — one’s vision without wearing corrective lenses — in most patients who have the procedure. Over 90% of patients with low to moderate myopia will achieve 20/40 vision. Over half of all patients can expect to achieve 20/20 vision or better.
It is important to note that LASIK surgery cannot guarantee a perfect vision outcome. During your consultation, we will discuss reasonable expectations for your vision results based on your eye factors.
What we can guarantee is that you will experience greatly improved vision quickly after the procedure. In fact, most patients experience greatly improved vision the day of surgery. Vision will continue to improve over a period of two to three months.
Most patients who have LASIK surgery will not need to wear eyeglasses for their daily activities. Patients may need to wear reading eyeglasses if they are over the age of 40 and are experiencing presbyopia. Presbyopia results from the normal aging of the eye with or without LASIK surgery and affects near vision. Some patients may need a minimal eyeglass prescription for some activities.
Also, if you used bifocals before surgery, you would still need them unless you decide to have a monovision treatment where one eye is corrected for distance and the other for near vision.
How long will it take before I can see well, and how long will it take before I have my best vision?
Fast visual recovery characterizes this operation. Most patients achieve good vision the day of surgery and find that their eyes feel fairly normal within a day. However, vision can continue to improve, and best vision can still take two to three months to occur. If necessary, adjustments to the surgery, called enhancements, can be done.
Are LASIK results permanent?
LASIK is a surgical procedure that permanently removes corneal tissue to reshape your eye and improve refraction. These changes are permanent. As the eye continues to age and change, some patients will experience a slight regression of vision changes after LASIK. But vision won’t regress back to your prior full prescription.
By your mid-40s, it is common for near vision to change as the natural lens loses its elasticity (presbyopia). If this happens to you, you can undergo a second round of LASIK correction surgery if your eye doctor finds it to be necessary/helpful. Presbyopia is not something that can be prevented with LASIK. Presbyopia is a gradual, age-related loss of your eyes’ ability to focus on nearby objects and is extremely common. The condition can be corrected with nonprescription or prescription eyeglasses or contact lenses.
For patients looking for a reversible procedure, ICL surgery is completely reversible. Unlike LASIK, which removes part of your cornea, ICL does not alter the structure of your eye.
What is a LASIK enhancement?
Although the vast majority of LASIK patients enjoy 20/20 vision, occasionally LASIK retreatment, or enhancement, is recommended to improve the vision. Fast recovery is typical for LASIK surgery patients, with each individual healing at different rates.
Most patients achieve good vision quickly, with continuing improvements over the next month or two. Given the unique nature of healing patterns and rates, recovery times vary. Your vision will be checked at frequent intervals and, if necessary and desired, an enhancement will be recommended to give improved results.
What happens if I blink during LASIK surgery?
A common concern of patients learning about LASIK surgery is the worry that they will blink during surgery. You don’t need to worry about this. Blinking will not be able to occur during the actual procedure. The numbing eyedrops that are placed in your eyes prior to surgery will prevent any treatment discomfort and get rid of your urge to blink. We also use a special medical device (a lid speculum) to gently keep your eyes open. The combination of the drops and the speculum means that you will not be able to blink.
Also, advanced eye-tracking technology will measure any movement so that the laser will always be perfectly positioned for your eye before it performs your treatment. Blinking, sneezing, coughing, any of these activities will cause the laser to wait and adjust its position perfectly.
Does LASIK hurt?
One of the most often asked questions about LASIK is if the treatment will hurt. The quick answer, LASIK laser eye surgery is typically painless. You may experience a sensation of pressure on the eye when the surgeon applies the microkeratome, the instrument the surgeon uses to create the corneal flap, but not pain. Neither the creation of the flap nor the laser causes pain.
Before LASIK surgery, topical anesthetic eyedrops will be administered to numb your eye so that you will not experience pain during the procedure.
Some patients report a scratching or burning sensation after their procedure. You may experience some mild discomfort after the anesthesia wears off, but nothing that should be worrisome. Most patients are advised to simply go home and take a short nap. After several hours, any discomfort should subside.
Can I have both eyes done with LASIK surgery at the same time?
Yes, it is possible to have both eyes done (bilateral simultaneous LASIK surgery) at the same time. It’s actually very common. Since the procedure is very safe and only takes about 10 minutes per eye, most patients will opt to have them done at the same time. There are some circumstances in which it is preferable to do each eye separately and evaluate the results. Your eye doctor will work with you to come to the best decision.
Operating on your eyes at different times can present some unique challenges since your prescriptions between the two eyes will be unbalanced.
Sometimes, a LASIK enhancement procedure will be done to sharpen the vision in one eye following LASIK surgery. In this case, only one eye will be treated.
How long will I be out of work after having LASIK eye surgery?
It depends on your occupation. Certain jobs that require intense clarity of vision (dentistry and surgery, for example) may be difficult to perform for one or two days. Most patients can return to work the next day, assuming their vision is adequate for their job.
However, some people may feel fatigued for a day or so following vision correction surgery. Your eye doctor will discuss the recommended time frame you may need to recover before returning to work.
Can I play sports after LASIK eye surgery?
You can resume most normal activities immediately after vision correction surgery. However, for at least two weeks, you will need to avoid activities that would cause perspiration to run into the eyes.
You should wear safety eyeglasses while playing contact sports whether or not you have had surgery. If you do not routinely wear safety eyeglasses, your surgeon may recommend wearing them for at least one month after LASIK surgery.
You will also need to avoid such activities as contact sports and swimming for several weeks.
Can I drive immediately after my LASIK procedure?
No, patients may not drive immediately after a LASIK procedure. This is for a few reasons. One, it is common for patients to experience some discomfort and/or blurred vision for a few hours after vision correction surgery. Along with the blurred vision can come a sensitivity to light, which can cause the eyes to water.
Also, most patients receive a sedative prior to surgery to help them relax. Because of these factors, plan on recruiting a friend or family member to drive you home and don’t plan on driving for at least 24 hours following LASIK surgery.
The day after surgery, you will return to the laser center for your first post-op exam. During this visit, your eye doctor will evaluate your vision and ensure that you are legal for driving without corrective lenses. When your eye doctor has confirmed that your visual acuity meets the legal requirements, you may resume driving.
How much does LASIK surgery cost?
The cost of LASIK surgery or any other refractive procedure can vary based on the procedure that your eye doctor recommends. Laser vision correction procedures including LASIK are considered elective and not covered by insurance.
Health Savings Accounts and Flexible Spending Accounts can often be used for LASIK surgery. Just be sure to check with your provider to confirm coverage.
For financing your LASIK surgery procedure, Visionary Eye Doctors offers zero down, zero percent interest deferred financing options through CareCredit.
To learn more about the cost of LASIK eye surgery, contact our team at Visionary Eye Doctors.
How does LASIK surgery work?
First, anesthetic eye drops are applied to the eye. Your surgeon then uses a femtosecond laser to create a customized corneal flap designed with the precise construction that has been shown to improve safety and visual outcomes.
Then, the corneal flap is then gently lifted back by your surgeon to allow a second laser to reshape the cornea with a computer controlled laser programmed according to your unique corneal map.
Next, the inner layers of the cornea receive computer-controlled pulses of cool laser light. The laser light gently reshapes the inner corneal layer to improve and in many cases, eliminate the need for prescription.
Following the reshaping of the tissue, your surgeon carefully repositions and aligns the flap to its original position.
Protective shields are placed over the eye to prevent accidental rubbing as the flap heals naturally and securely over the next several hours.
LASIK: Affordability and Financing
Determining Your Cost for LASIK Vision Correction
The cost of LASIK or another refractive procedure varies according to the type of procedure that our doctors determine is best for you and your eyes. The value of a vision correction procedure is found in the quality of your care and surgical outcomes.
At Visionary Eye Doctors, we start your patient experience with a state-of-the-art, in-depth eye exam with Dr. Martinez or Dr. Sarezky. This exam is specifically for patients interested in finding out if they would be a candidate for a vision correction procedure and to determine the cost of their surgery.
Payment Options for Laser Eye Surgery in Washington, DC
When considering a vision correction procedure, financial considerations should not be an obstacle in obtaining the care you deserve. At Visionary Eye Doctors, our goal is to make vision correction procedures affordable. We offer zero down, 0% interest deferred financing options through CareCredit and accept all HSA/FSA plans. We also accept cash, check, and all major credit cards.
Use your HSA/FSA Benefits
Your FSA can help you save for LASIK. You can put up to $2,700 into your Flexible Spending Account each year.
Laser vision correction procedures such as LASIK are approved under most Flexible Spending and Health Savings Accounts. By participating in an employer-sponsored FSA or HSA plan, you can set aside tax free money for your Laser Vision Correction procedure.
Open enrollment periods are brief and vary from one employer to another. Now is the perfect time to come in for an evaluation to see if you’re a candidate for laser vision correction. Then you will know how much to set aside in your plan to have your laser vision correction procedure.
Cost Comparison
Laser vision correction procedures such as LASIK are considered elective and not covered by insurance. The current marketplace can be confusing as multiple providers advertise a wide variety of prices. We encourage you to do your research to decide if Visionary Eye Doctors may be right for you.
Our world-class refractive surgeons and highly trained staff use the best equipment/technology to produce excellent outcomes for our patients.
The two factors that directly affect your surgical outcomes are technology and your surgeon’s expertise. Your vision is priceless!
The Average Cost of Eye Care Over 10 Years
Glasses
- Eye Exam (Every 2 Years)
- $150
- Frames (Every 2 Years)
- $350
10 Year Total
$2,500
- Frames (Every 2 Years)
- $350
10 Year Total
$6,650
Soft Disposable Lenses & Back-Up Glasses
- Contact Lens Exam (Every 2 Years)
- $270
- Contact Lenses (Every Year)
- $280
- Solution (Every Year)
- $75
- Frames (Every 2 Years)
- $350
10 Year Total
$6,650
Rigid Gas Permeable Lenses & Back-Up Glasses
- Contact Lens Exam (Every 2 Years)
- $350
- RGP Contact Lenses (Every Year)
- $380
- Solution (Every Year)
- $120
- Frames (Every 2 Years)
- $350
10 Year Total
$8,500
Request a Surgical Consultation for LASIK in Washington, DC
The first step in determining your candidacy for any procedure is to schedule a consultation and experience our comprehensive eye exam. This is the most complete eye exam available today and includes a consultation with one of our experienced surgeons. Utilizing advanced diagnostic technology, our surgeons will not only evaluate your candidacy for a procedure but will look at the overall health of your eyes and establish a long-term plan for your best vision.
Please help us provide you with the best experience by answering a few quick questions, and one of our surgical counselors will assist you. If you are a current patient and/or have a medical concern or question, please contact us directly at 301-896-0890.