-- Age Considerations --
Before you even think about lasik eye surgery, you might wonder if you can even have lasik at your age.
Maybe you think you′re too young. Perhaps you think it′s too late to do such a thing. Indeed, there are age considerations when deciding upon having lasik.
First, you must be old enough. The FDA has never even approved lasik surgery for anyone under the age of 18. However, FDA approval shouldn't even be the point to you. The most important thing is whether your eyes have matured to a good level of stability.
Say, for instance, you are 20 years old and you′ve consistently had prescription changes every year since you started wearing corrective lenses. Even though you are over 18 and technically able to have the surgery, it would be wiser to wait until your eyes settle down to a more steady state.
People older than 40 may hesitate to have lasik surgery done; they feel that it′s too late to even try. Studies have shown that people who are 40 years old up until they are 70 years of age can have good results with lasik eye surgery. They just need to know what to expect.
In one study, a group of people in this age range had lasik surgery to correct nearsightedness or farsightedness. A very high percentage of those being treated for farsightedness (over 80%) got proper correction of their eyesight. Even those in their sixties had these results.
The numbers for the nearsighted group were amazing as well. Over 85% had their eyes corrected to 20/30 vision. This would seem to suggest that middle aged adults aren′t too old for lasik eye surgery.
Many middle aged to older adults struggle with presbyopia, or "old eyes." This is a condition where the person has trouble focusing on near vision. To read a book, you might find yourself holding it far from your eyes if you have presbyopia.
There is a special lasik surgery that has been developed for such a condition. It is called monovision. After the surgery, one eye will be used to see into the distance, while the other eye will be used to see close up.
To achieve this, the doctor will correct one eye for nearsightedness and one for farsightedness. This helps the people with presbyopia overcome their troubles with near vision. However, they sacrifice some of the acuteness of their vision, and some of their depth perception as well.
If your eyes have reached a maturity level where they aren′t changing frequently, age will probably not be a problem for you.
It may have an affect on the outcome, such as having to wear corrective lenses at times with monovision. Yet, it isn′t likely to stop you.