How to know if you are a good candidate for PRK
You have probably heard about this miracle laser eye surgery that everyone is getting these days. Laser eye surgery is truly a medical miracle, with millions of people having the procedure done each year. In just fifteen or twenty minutes a surgeon can drastically change your vision. If you are one millions upon millions of people who suffer from basic eye disorders, such as nearsightedness and farsightedness, you should look into this procedure. Like any surgery, laser eye surgery has risks, but the FDA has found it to be basically safe.
Only a very small minority of patients report having any problem with the procedure. Most of us feal that glasses alter our appearance in a very negative way. Many people also feal that contact lenses are extremely uncomfortable and a pain to put in. So if you are one of the millions of people who would like to find an alternative, you should consider one of the many options for surgery. You have probably heard of lasik surgery, which is the most popular technique, but do you know about PRK? PRK stands for Photorefractive Keratechtomy, and it is a technique that reshapes the cornea just as in lasik. A laser is used to alter the shape of the eye so that when light enters the cornea it is refracted in the right way. When the cornea is mishapen or has small defects, the light is bent in the wrong way so that the image when it hits the retina is blurry and out of shape. So how can you use PRK to correct your vision problem? Who is a good candidate for PRK?
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You are a good candidate for PRK if you are older than eighteen and have no major medical problems. Pregnant women and nursing mothers should not have PRK or any other form of laser eye surgery. You need basically healthy eyes that are not scared and which do not have any form of eye disease. PRK is generally used to treat nearsightedness, so you should ask your doctor if the procedure can be used for farsightedness. Generally the range of nearsightedness that can be treated is within -1.50 to -7.50 diopters. You will also need some form of written proof that shows that your eyes have only changed at most 1.50 diopters in the last couple of years per year. This means that if your eyes have been extremely unstable in recent years you might not be a good candidate for PRK. Finally, the most important thing is for you to become aware of the basic risks of PRK and laser eye surgery, which are minimal.
The best person to decide if you are a good candidate for PRK is your doctor. Because every person's eyes are different, and because every eye is different from another, eye doctors have to be very specific about the treatments used on different people. PRK might work better for one person than for another. One of the nice things about laser eye surgery is that there are several different methods for performing the operation. Ask your doctor about wavefront technology for your PRK. Wavefront uses a beam of light to map the problem spots in the eye.
This can make for a much more effective surgery and hence for better eyesight in the long run. With improvements in laser technology occuring everyday, you never know what great new form of laser eye surgery is just around the bend. Good luck with your laser eye surgery!
