For many people, LASIK surgery means freedom from glasses and/or contact lenses. Custom LASIK improves both visual acuity and the quality of your vision. If you have extremely poor vision, which cannot be adequately resolved by corrective lenses, LASIK may help by improving the curvature of your corneas.

Lasik is not for everyone. The only way to know if LASIK is right for you is for you to come into our office for a free consultation with Dr. Sloane.

LASIK has been approved by the FDA as a safe and effective eye surgery procedure. The LASIK procedure uses a computer controlled laser, that the surgeon turns on and can turn off at any moment. The laser has many built in safeguards to reduce the risk of error. As with any surgical procedure, however, there are always risks. While the majority of LASIK patients achieve better vision without any serious complications, a small percentage of LASIK patients do experience some difficulties.

Two of the most common side effects are dry eye and seeing starbursts or halos around lights at nighttime, both which are usually temporary and disappear with time as the eyes heal. Dry eye can be soothed with the use of artificial tears which soothes the eye by keeping it moist. Less than 1% of LASIK patients have vision that worsens rather than improves.

Laser vision correction surgery has proven to be very successful in helping individuals reduce their dependence on glasses and contact lenses; however, the degree of improvement will vary among individuals. With the advent of customized vision assessment and correction, combined with technologies such as a wave-front-guided LASIK, and the quality and experience provided by Emory Vision, your vision may improve dramatically in both quality and quantity after LASIK.

The number of people considering refractive surgery is at an all time high and Lasik is currently considered to be the procedure of choice. Specifically, Lasik surgery creates less trauma to the eye than PRK, enabling the cornea to heal more quickly and improving vision more rapidly. Some of the benefits of Lasik are:

It is important to realize that, like any surgery, LASIK is not without risk. However, major complications are extremely rare. Most complications that do occur, however, are likely due to the old style "Blade Microkeratomes," the metalic blade that cuts the cornea to make the LASIK flap. Here at Northern California Laser Center, we offer the All-Laser LASIK using the IntraLase that has virtually eliminated the potential for any complications.

Custom LASIK, also called Wavefront LASIK, allows for a more customized treatment based on 3-dimensional measurements of your eye. The wavefront technology uses light to make a map of your eye. While two people can have the same eye prescription, no two people have the same wavefront measurements. Wavefront LASIK usually results in fewer "higher order" aberrations, tiny imperfections which affect your overall quality of vision, such as visual glare and halos.

Patients must be at least 18 and their prescription should have been stable for at least a year prior to LASIK. Most people stabilize in their late teens or early 20s. There are a few medical conditions which could exclude a patient from having surgery. Before having LASIK, all patients are examined by the surgeon to make sure they are a good candidate for vision correction.