What are some reasons someone can be rejected for LASIK eye surgery?
There are many reasons a patient might not be a good candidate for LASIK.
1) You are too nearsighted! There is a direct,
proportional relationship between how much myopia (nearsightedness) you want to
treat and how much cornea will be removed to accomplish that. Once you go
beyond somewhere around -5 to -7 diopters in your Rx, you are getting into
risky territory for long term problems.
2) Your cornea is too thin. Just as in the previous
example, if your cornea is quite thin, you may not have enough left after some
LASIK treatments for long term stability.
3) You have some sort of
corneal abnormality.
Keratoconus is the most common corneal irregularity among several such
conditions that can be made worse by LASIK.
4) Dry Eye. LASIK will unavoidably
damage many of the sensory nerves in the cornea while the laser reshapes it.
The release of tears from the lacrimal glands occurs when those nerves are
irritated. If the lacrimal glands are no longer getting a proper "message" from
the LASIK cornea about its drying out, there will be inadequate tear release
afterwards. This can be permanent to some degree.
5) You are farsighted, not
nearsighted.
LASIK does not cure presbyopia -needing reading glasses. While there are ways
to "trick" one eye into reading by over or under-correcting it, this is not
really a cure. LASIK can be used to treat the other type of farsightedness
called hyperopia, but the effect is transient and usually wears off in 2-3
years (unlike the more permanent myopia LASIK).
6) You either have, or are
developing cataracts.
People over about age 55 will often have at least some degree of discoloration
of the natural lens of their eyes. So no matter how well you completely treat
any nearsightedness or astigmatism with LASIK, the patient will often
experience a result that gets progressively undermined even with an initially
good outcome.
_Written by J. Trevor Woodhams, M.D. - Chief
of Surgery, Woodhams Eye Clinic