If you are struggling with your eyesight, you don’t have to live with it anymore. You have options! No, we don’t mean the option of either eyeglasses or contacts. You can opt for eye surgery and live the life you’ve always wanted, free of the poor eyesight that has been holding you back. Before you can run full steam ahead with the idea of surgery, though, you must first decide which one. Your two main options are Intraocular Lenses and LASIK eye surgery. Both procedures can help patients achieve 20/20 vision without the need for glasses or contact lenses, but these are two very different procedures that correct vision in very different ways. Which one is right for you? In order to best answer this, let’s look into each option a bit deeper.
What is LASIK Eye Surgery?
LASIK can be used to treat myopia, astigmatism or hyperopia. It is a procedure that uses a laser to remove tissue from your cornea in order to correct your vision. This procedure can correct very low to very high amounts of defocus from 0.5 diopters up to 10 or more. In fact, some studies show excellent LASIK results for patients up to 18 diopters! The laser treatment takes less than one minute for each eye and the total surgical procedure lasts about 15 minutes per eye.
The major restricting factor in how much correction can be achieved with LASIK eye surgery is corneal thickness. The higher the correction, the more corneal tissue has to be removed. For patients with a very high degree of myopia, the cornea may simply not be thick enough to obtain the full correction. That is where your second option comes in.
What are Intraocular Lenses?
Intraocular lenses (IOLs) are medical devices that are implanted inside the eye to replace the eye’s natural lens when it is removed during cataract surgery. IOLs also are used for a type of vision correction surgery called refractive lens exchange. This procedure does not require the removal of corneal tissue. Instead, your vision is corrected by a placement of a lens inside the eye itself. This procedure requires about 20 to 30 minutes per eye. Often, the surgeries for the two eyes are performed about a week apart.
Today there is a wide variety of premium IOLs to choose from. The best intraocular lens for you depends on many factors, including your lifestyle and your specific visual needs. The two different types of phakic IOLs are Visian and Verisyse. They are a bit different because of where they are placed in the eye, but both work the same way. They do so by combining the correction of the implanted lens with the natural lens to achieve 20/20 vision, or better!
What’s the Difference?
LASIK is less Invasive. It requires the removal of corneal tissue and cannot be reversed. On the other hand, IOLs require the surgeon to enter the inner part of the eye to place the lens, making this procedure the more invasive choice. It can be reversed should you desire to do so.
The biggest difference between LASIK and Intraocular lenses (IOLs) is that LASIK cannot be performed on a substantial number of patients whose required level of correction is above six diopters, due to the corneal thickness. On the other hand, Intraocular lenses (IOLs) can correct very high levels of myopia. That being said, no IOLs are available to accommodate a low level of correction, so LASIK is the only potential option.
LASIK Eye Surgery at Eye Care Professionals of Reno
Both procedures have extremely low complication rates and give patients an immediate improvement in vision. The corrective procedure that is right for you comes down to the thickness of your cornea. Do you know how thick your cornea is? Probably not! Our expert team here at Eye Care Professionals of Reno can examine you and help guide you towards the best option. The only thing left to do now is to book your appointment!
