Wavefront Lasik: the “wave of the Future” for Vision Correction

Wavefront LASIK, also called Custom LASIK, is a relatively new innovation in laser vision surgery. This process has vastly improved the way eye surgery is performed and has enabled your ophthalmologist to correct problems with your vision that were previously unfixable.

Wavefront technology takes 3D images of your eye to help guide in the reshaping process of your cornea. This affords ophthalmologists an ability to achieve a higher degree of precision in surgical corrections than was ever possible in the past.

While glasses, contact lenses, and older LASIK procedures could only correct for lower order aberrations (myopia, hyperopia, and astigmatism), wavefront technology has the ability to correct for higher order aberrations (halos, glare, shadows, blurry images) as well.

Benefits

Wavefront LASIK improves more than just your standard vision as measured by your prescription. It also enhances your contrast sensitivity and fine detail, making this procedure vastly superior to more traditional LASIK options. As a result, night vision improvements are much more extensive than what was previously possible.

You also have a lower risk of post-LASIK complications with wavefront.

Wavefront LASIK offers you the following improvements in the quality of your vision correction surgery:

·         Greater chance of achieving 20/20 vision

·         Reduced chance of deterioration of your newly corrected vision

·         Reduced chance of losing visual quality or contrast sensitivity

·         Decrease in complications and night vision issues

At this time, most eye surgeons are using wavefront technology in their practices. Currently, 74% of LASIK surgeons use wavefront, a sharp increase from 2003 when only about 10% used this technology.

How it Works

A wavefront device shoots a ray of light into your eye. This light reflects off your retina and returns to the device through your pupil. The wavefront device then arranges the light ray in a format that conveys both your lower and higher order aberrations.

These irregularities in your eye are shown in the form of a 3D map. The information from this map gets electronically transmitted to the laser used to operate on your eye. This provides for a procedure completely customized to the unique characteristics and intricacies of your eyes.

Wavefront is currently considerably more expensive than traditional LASIK procedures, but the benefits and advantages of this process seem to indicate that it is well worth the extra money.