What to Expect During Your LASIK Consultation
January 19th, 2024
Are you considering LASIK surgery? Before determining if you are a candidate for this vision correction procedure, you will need to attend an initial LASIK consultation.
This important appointment serves multiple purposes and can help set your expectations for LASIK surgery. Keep reading to learn more about what you can anticipate during your LASIK consultation!
What Do I Need to Do Before My LASIK Consultation
In some cases, you may need to stop wearing contacts for a period of time before you come in for your evaluation. Contact lenses can temporarily mold the shape of your cornea and change it from its natural position.
Wearing glasses instead of contacts for a week or more prior to your LASIK consultation allows your corneas to revert to their natural shape.
This will ensure that the measurements your eye doctor will take are accurate. Your eye doctor’s office will likely tell you ahead of time if avoiding wearing contact lenses prior to your appointment is necessary.
However, if you’re unsure, it’s best to ask.
What Happens During a LASIK Consultation?
On the day of your LASIK consultation, your eye doctor will perform many different tests to determine if you may be a good candidate for the procedure. Here’s what you can expect during your LASIK consultation:
Medical History
To begin, your eye doctor will ask you about your medical history and discuss your goals for the procedure with you. This is an important conversation since it can reveal health conditions that may affect surgery or your eye health in general.
Be sure to be upfront and answer questions as accurately as you can.
Eye Exam
After taking your medical history and discussing your vision goals, your doctor will do an extensive eye exam. Parts of this exam are similar to getting an annual eye exam to check your eye health.
Other aspects are specific to LASIK preparation and involve taking measurements of your eyes. The elements of the eye exam include:
Testing the eye’s ability to focus: A refraction exam, similar to the kind you get when checking the prescription for your glasses, tells your eye doctor what degree of correction you will need. This will involve standard manual refraction where you do the “which is better, one or two” test with various corrections.
It may also include a digital analysis that confirms the manual refraction.
Dilated eye exam: Your eye doctor will give you eye drops to dilate your pupils so they can examine the inner structures of the eye. They will also perform more vision measurements for the most accurate refraction.
Digital Scans: Your eye doctor will do a series of scans of the eye to assess the shape, size, and health of different parts of the eye, including:
- The front of the eye: Measuring the curvature, shape, and thickness of cornea
- The inside of the eye: Checking retinal health and function
- The surface of the eye: Assessing tear film composition and volume
Your eye doctor will also use this exam as an opportunity to check for conditions like glaucoma, macular degeneration, and eye infections. They will also use digital scans to measure the overall dimensions of the eyeball as well as the size of the pupil.
Once you have completed the consultation and your eye doctor has agreed that LASIK is the best option for you, you can schedule your procedure.
Do you want to learn more about LASIK or determine if you may be a good candidate for the procedure? Schedule a LASIK consultation at Laser Eye Center in Huntsville, AL, today!
