Amblyopia, or "lazy-eye" is a condition where visual acuity in one eye is reduced due to crossed-eyes, large refractive errors, or visual deprivation. It starts early in life and cannot be fixed after a child reaches their teen years. Laser vision correction can help correct lazy-eye in children, but not in adults. No, the LASIK procedure does not change color vision. Colors and hue are generated by the lens, retina, and brain.

Ocala Eye is the only practice in North Central Florida (within a 15 county area) that offers comprehensive medical and surgical eye care. We have fellowship-trained specialists in all major areas of the eye. In keeping with this comprehensive philosophy, our refractive surgeons offer all currently available refractive surgical procedures, although we recommend CustomVue™ LASIK for most of our laser vision correction patients.

Presbyopia occurs in most individuals around the age of 40 to 45 years. This develops because the lens inside the eye loses its ability to change shape, and allow near focusing. People compensate for presbyopia by using bifocals and reading glasses. Although there is no surgical cure for presbyopia, symptoms can be reduced with monovision.

Ocala Eye, we currently use the VISX S4™ Excimer Laser with pupil tracking. This laser uses Fourier Wavefront™ analysis and treatment, the most sophisticated Wavefront™ algorithm available in the U.S. today. The laser is kept in a dedicated laser suite with computerized climate control, constantly monitoring temperature and humidity to ensure the highest possible accuracy in our treatments.

It is an outpatient treatment first performed in 1987 that uses a light beam to gently reshape the surface of the eye (the cornea) and improve vision. The light gently pulses to remove microscopic amounts of tissue, altering the curvature of the cornea and allowing visual images to be more focused on the retina.

Answer: Our laser performs fast active tracking in which it tracks each of the 200 laser pulses per second 4 times each second, the tracker changes its tracking patterns 6,000 times per second and thus responds to any eye movement.

If you choose PRK, you will be required to use steroid eye drops for several weeks to months following the surgical procedure. However, should you choose LASIK, most patients are on antibiotic and anti-inflammatory drops for five to seven days following the procedure. Dr. Duffey does suggest that most patients use artificial teardrops for several weeks following the procedure, especially in the winter months when humidity is lower and dry eye symptoms occur more frequently.

After laser vision correction is performed, patients are sent home with a sleeping pill and are asked to rest with the eyes closed as much as possible until the follow-up visit the next day. Patients with lower amounts of myopia may have vision good enough to drive the next day but should be cautious. Patients who have higher degrees of myopia may actually be overcorrected initially and may experience somewhat blurry vision.

Contact Ocala Eye for more information on laser vision correction. Our Ocala, Florida area offices can send you literature about the procedure. You may also visit us during one of our free seminars or schedule a free screening and consultation with one of our surgeons. If you are a potential candidate and would like to proceed, we will have you return for a more formal, complete eye examination.

There are possible risks with any surgical procedure. Serious complications with LASIK or PRK are extremely rare. The chance of having a vision-reducing complication from LASIK has been documented in clinical studies to be less than one percent. Many of the risks and complications associated with this procedure can be reduced or eliminated through careful patient selection and thorough pre-operative testing using the latest diagnostic technology.

Many of the local refractive surgery centers include annual exams as a requirement for their lifetime programs. Even though your vision may be excellent after surgery, regular eye exams are still suggested to evaluate the health of your eye.

Laser vision correction reduces or eliminates nearsightedness, farsightedness or astigmatism and with it, the need for glasses or contacts.

Also known as refractive surgery, laser vision correction refers to elective operative eye procedures that use a laser to reshape the cornea, and change the way light is focused or "refracted" by the eye. The goal is simple: to reduce your dependence on glasses or contacts. If you are nearsighted, farsighted or have astigmatism and feel that glasses or contact lenses limit your activities, laser vision correction may be the right choice for you.

The goal of any refractive surgical procedure is to reduce your dependence on corrective lenses. However, we cannot guarantee you will have 20/20 vision as a result. Our commitment to you is that we will not perform laser vision correction on you or anyone we feel does not have a good possibility of achieving independence from glasses and contacts.