Before going for any kind of elective surgery, it is important to consult your family doctor. This may seem like a pain. After all, if you have public healthcare, you may expect that the doctor will take a dim view of people going private for surgery that they may deem unnecessary. While it is true that some doctors will be cynical about a patient going for treatment that they do not consider to be essential, most will not. They will simply look to offer advice that will ensure that any elective treatment is carried out in such a way as to ensure a positive result for you.

When speaking to your doctor, underline that you are keen to have the treatment and that it is your choice, but that you want to make the right decision. In order to make that decision, you want to know if you have any underlying condition that might make the treatment more complicated. This may include an absence of necessary corneal tissue, or even something as simple as the consistency of your tears.

In addition to speaking to your doctor, you should ensure that the surgery where you go for treatment is fulfilling its side of the bargain with regard to preparatory testing. Ask about their pre-surgery testing procedure and compare it to those available elsewhere. There are several factors that can govern the success or otherwise of Laser Eye Surgery, and a diligent clinic will check for all of them before operating.

Therefore, it is important to consider the cost of LASIK surgery. It is fairly common to see advertisements on television and in the daily press offering treatment from £395 per eye. If your problems are confined to one eye, this may seem like a very reasonable price, but it does seem that the operative word in that last sentence is “from”. While it is possible that people will get the treatment they require at that price, it is the least you will pay, and the chances are it will be upwards of £1,000, and possibly of £2,000 or more.

Obviously, the existence of a sliding payment scale is not a rare occurence and certainly not confined to laser eye surgery. If you have the money to spare, then it is something that need not put you off having the treatment you require or desire. It is certainly worth going through a cost / benefit analysis. By having the surgery, will you comfortably improve the quality of your life? Will you increase your ability to do certain jobs that would end up more than covering the cost? Can you spare the money?

Often, surgeries will offer low prices for treatments in order to get you through the door, and use pressure selling techniques. Other surgeries may well carry out treatments for a low price, but only be able to afford such a low pricing scale through using older, less precise equipment. It is certainly worth doing some comparison shopping before having the treatment. It is possible to get good treatment at a reasonable price – but you may need to search for it.

So, if you are suddenly offered the opportunity to cast off the need for adornments to help you see, it is understandable to take the opportunity with enthusiasm. Often, companies will sell LASIK by suggesting or openly stating that you will be able to throw away your glasses for the foreseeable future. Indeed, it is often implied that this will be a permanent solution to your vision problems. However, this is not wholly true.

While not wholly true, it is also not a direct lie, and this probably has a large bearing on the reason that companies are allowed to continue implying it. However, it is not something on which you should rely. The effects of LASIK surgery are not necessarily permanent. It may be the case that you never need to wear glasses again. It is, however, not something that can be guaranteed – not before the surgery, and not in the aftermath. LASIK surgery, as long as you are an appropriate candidate, will improve your immediate vision, but can no more guarantee your future vision than knee surgery will guarantee future mobility.

The effects of LASIK are more permanent than a lot of other forms of eye surgery, and for some patients are the best available. However, it is unhelpful to think in terms of guarantees and better to think about what can be said with a high degree of confidence. If you are realistic and sanguine you will be happy with the results of your LASIK eye surgery now and in the long term.

The first, and most simple, thing which may prevent you from having LASIK eye surgery is age. Unless you are over eighteen years of age, you will be strongly and correctly advised against having it. Your eyes and your vision change considerably during childhood and adolescence, and any surgery you may have during that time may well be less positively effective.

This much is true of anyone whose quality of vision is not stable. If you wear glasses, it is important to look at your prescription over the course of a year or more. If your prescription is changing with time, the surgery may not be as effective as you would like, and could actually have negative effects. Doctors will advise a steady prescription period dating back at least a year before going for surgery.

You should also be in relatively good general health before going for LASIK surgery. If you have an ongoing medical condition requiring medication, it may rule you out from having the surgery. For example, people with autoimmune conditions often suffer from Dry Eye Syndrome – which, along with the likelihood of it worsening post-surgery is also a potential contributor to a slow recovery period and an increased infection risk.

A pregnant or nursing woman will also be advised not to have LASIK surgery, and with good reason. Not only is the risk of Dry Eye Surgery higher, but perhaps more importantly it is necessary to take medication post-surgery and during the operation which can be absorbed into the blood supply and directed toward the foetus – or passed on through the mother’s milk – and adversely affect the child. Pregnant women will be well advised to wait until the baby is born and weaned before having the surgery.

It is undeniable that LASIK treatment, although a highly popular way to improve the performance of your eyes, has some side effects of its own. While this is a fact, there are still many people who see it as their best bet for a future free of compromised eyesight. Setting the negative side-effects against the positive effects, one must make a decision on whether they are prepared to accept the negative.

It is worth noting, too, that many of the side effects can be lessened or nullified by medication which is prescribed by surgeons for the aftermath of the treatment.

One side effect of LASIK eye surgery is a slightly painful, gritty feeling in the eyes in the immediate aftermath. A consequence of the inevitable drying out of the eyes, this can be unpleasant, it can be itchy and it is irritating to many. However, it does not last long and can be reduced by the correct medication. Ironically, another of the side effects commonly reported by patients is a tendency for the eyes to tear up unexpectedly. In time, the tear ducts adjust to the treatment and this side effect tends not to persist for long.

You may find that in the days following surgery your eyes are prone to blurred vision. It is not recommended that you drive during this time, and any other procedure that relies on having clear vision should be avoided. This is part of the healing process, and is over within 24-72 hours. Then again, if you had ligament surgery on your knees, you wouldn’t be playing football three days, or even three weeks later (probably not even three months). Side effects are not complications – they are a necessary part of the process – but consult your doctor if you are concerned.

There is an answer to this question. It is true that teenagers are advised they should not have Laser Eye Surgery, and with very good reason. Although it may be desirable to have treatment which negates the need for external aids, a teenager will not find that the cure to their vision problems lies with surgery except in specific and rare circumstances. Most vision problems are a result of the cornea of the eye – which happens to be constantly changing in shape during our teens and even into our early twenties. There may be clinics which are willing to operate on teenagers – but they should be avoided.

The truth is that all surgeons know that it is unwise to give Laser Eye Surgery to someone whose eyes are still developing. Aside from being unnecessary in most cases – the fault may be self-correcting given time – the surgery will not definitively fix the problem anyway. After surgery, the eye will continue to develop, and if there was a fault to begin with it may well reoccur during this time – meaning that the patient will need to go back for further treatment.

Any surgeon who does carry out Laser Eye Surgery on a teenager, therefore, is not someone who should be trusted unless the surgery is necessary for a more extreme fault. If they will carry out surgery regardless, one has to wonder whether they are the kind of surgeon you want to operate on your adolescent son or daughter. And if you explain it this way to your son or daughter, they may not be overjoyed, but they will understand.

Laser Eye Surgery is too new for us to be sure of its long-term benefits and risks.

Laser Eye Surgery has been practised for more than fifteen years now. Certainly it is new in comparison to a number of other treatments, but after fifteen years if there were to be major risks they would by now be apparent. By all means we should be cautious before rushing to have any medical procedure done, but a doctor’s advice is worth more than a million scare stories.

You can throw away your old reading glasses – you won’t need any once you’ve had Laser Eye Surgery.

While it is certainly true that you will likely notice a vast improvement in your eyesight after a course of Laser Eye Surgery, it is unlikely to make things perfect. You may still need to wear some glasses for one reason or another. We cannot guarantee anything about surgery. If you have a heart transplant, you will still need to be careful afterwards. Equally, after laser eye surgery your eyesight will be better, but not necessarily good enough to do away with glasses altogether.

Once the surgery is done, the results are permanent.

This just is not true. While Laser Eye Surgery from a good surgeon will make a big difference initially and for some time afterwards, there is no way of locking out what time does to our eyes – just the same as with any part of our body. It will fix things for a satisfactory period, but not permanently. What it will do is stop the rapid deterioration that might happen without.

While LASIK surgery is, without a doubt, the more popular of the two methods, it is not the right method for everyone. It will depend very much on the make-up of your eye (no, not mascara – the physical composition of the organ). For some people, they will find after the initial consultation that there is not enough corneal tissue to make the LASIK procedure viable. That being the case, they will need to make the trade-off between the more immediately painful LASEK surgery and its benefits of greater versatility – and, for that matter, less haze in the immediate aftermath of the surgery.

Of course, if you have LASEK surgery you will take longer to recover your full potential eyesight. It is inadvisable to drive, for example, for about a week after LASEK, whereas LASIK patients are freely advised and able to return to the driving seat within three days of the surgery. LASEK is also the newer surgery, and there are many people who will have their doubts about it based upon that – doubts which may be inaccurate but nonetheless difficult to avoid.

Then there is the fact that LASEK is the cheaper form of surgery. While many people will feel that you “get what you pay for”, this does not mean that LASEK eye surgery will condemn you to poorer results than LASIK. Overall, the results will be no worse – they will simply take longer to resolve and might be less comfortable in the short term. Ask your doctor and think about your finances before making a final decision.

Of course, science has managed to stay almost entirely out of the hands of rogue madmen, and the power of laser beams has been harnessed for positive reasons, rather than enslaving the human race. And it does what it does very effectively. For the most part, people who undergo laser eye surgery come out with their vision problems corrected and their supposed “gamble” a winning endeavour. Undoubtedly there are some for whom it fails to pass muster – but this is almost entirely due to the fact that, for one reason or another, they were unsuitable candidates for the treatment.

One thing that is essential with respect to laser eye surgery is that you see your doctor before having it carried out. Any reputable laser eye surgery clinic will insist on this anyway – apart from anything else it is incredibly bad for business if people leave their surgery dissatisfied with the results or with their vision significantly worsened. Your doctor will be able to tell you if there is any reason you should not have the treatment.

It is also important to separate fact from fiction where laser eye surgery is concerned. You may well see advertisements on television or in the papers telling you that you can throw away your glasses or contact lenses forever, because the wonders of laser eye surgery will render them unnecessary. While this may be the case on some occasions, it is not always true that your vision will be so significantly improved that you will be spectacle-free forever.

One potential complication that occurs after LASIK surgery for a minority of patients is Severe Dry Eye Syndrome. While the procedure is considered to be among the safest surgical operations you can undergo, everyone’s eyes are different. What appears to be the correct treatment may not have the desired effect, and some LASIK operations have the unexpected effect of preventing the tear ducts from producing the necessary amount of moisture to keep the eyes protected from dust and impurities. Some dryness is expected for a few days afterwards, but if it is persistent then you will need to consult a physician.

It is also possible, although by no means likely, that the aftermath of LASIK surgery will include some loss of vision. Again, in the immediate aftermath it is inevitable that your vision will be compromised, but the longer it goes on the more likely it is that you will need to have follow-up surgery. The requirement for follow-up surgery is not common, but it is wise to clarify in advance with your surgeon what the procedure is if you find that the problems persist.

One other complication that may occur is a change to how you see things through reading glasses. This can be permanent, and in such cases it is important to weigh up whether the overall improvement in your vision is worth the difference when you wear reading glasses. It may require a simple change to the nature of glasses that you wear, but there may well be no need to have any further surgery.