There are three main treatment choices for anyone thinking of having laser eye surgery. But which one will be right for you?

The final choice will be determined between you and your laser eye surgeon. BUT, of course, you have the eyes and your surgeon has the expertise so you will be heavily influenced by what the doctor or another clinic staff member says. It will be better to be prepared. With just a little knowledge you can be actively involved in making the right choice.

I will outline the 3 main options to help you have an informed discussion when the time comes to select which approach is best for your individual eyes. After all, you only have one pair so you want to get it right.

You will be overwhelmed at first by all the terminology, treatments and brand names. Don’t worry. There is no need to be blinded by science or some of the frankly misleading marketing information that is out there.

Firstly, whichever of the 3 treatment types (more on these coming in a couple of days in part 2) you go for, you must go for the wavefront option. The wavefront (or custom) technology has made a huge improvement in vision success rates with many more people getting 20/20 sight or even better.

Different clinics use different names for this technology: custom, wavefront, wavefront guided, wavefront optimised, CustomVue.

Many clinics will charge you more for wavefront based treatments over older non-wavefront options. Is it worth it? Definitely.

Back in 2000 when we were doing LASIK without wavefront, the benchmarks for success were getting 65% of patients to 20/20. In 2008 we expect more than 95% of patients to see 20/20 or better. This improvement has come from better technology, in large part from custom or wavefront based corrections.

Also wavefront laser eye treatment will give better vision at night or in low light situations. Patients will notice less halos and glare from light sources such as car headlights. It is like buying a more expensive camera with a much, much better lens.

This is the year 2008, so get the best current technology for your sight correction – you only will have this done once and you will live with the results for the rest of your life. Think about the computer you had back in 2000 and what is now available in 2008 – that is the level of difference in laser technology too. No brainer, really.

If you can’t afford the price, either don’t have it done yet and save up until you can afford it, or think about financing.

So if you go to Optical Express, go for the more expensive CustomVue wavefront version. Without it, the results really are not at a level that is satisfactory in 2008. If you go to Optimax or Ultralase, pay and get their wavefront guided option.

If you go to FOCUS Laser Vision, wavefront is already included in the quoted price. They don’t do any non-wavefront treatments.

Come back in a couple of days to read part 2 where we will finish this post by looking at safety and healing in laser eye surgery.

Here is Part 2 of the Essential UK Guide to Laser Eye Surgery slideshows. It covers how to read your prescription and know what all the numbers mean.

This is really useful to know for when you call up a clinic to find out if you are suitable for LASIK or PRK laser eye surgery, they will ask you for your prescription. They can also tell you what the maximum prescription treatable limit is, so you will know if you are within the range or not.

You can see it here:

Essential UK Guide to Laser Eye Surgery Part 2 – Reading Your Prescription

[tags]clinic, guide, laser eye surgery, LASIK, London, PRK, UK [/tags]