Home Find ODs In Your Area Insurance Plans Accepted Patient Forms Career Financing Options Office Locations
Follow ECT on Twitter

Become an ECT Fan on Facebook Now

LASIK Eye Surgery

Thinking about having LASIK vision correction, but a little worried about how safe LASIK really is?

Facts and Guidelines on LASIK Surgery

Do your homework when selecting a surgeon

The number of LASIK surgeries a doctor has performed is important. However you may be tempted to go to a place that does 40 or 50 surgeries a day, but this isn’t in your best interest. The lasers need to be calibrated regularly and the more procedures that occur in one day the more likely mistakes can happen.

Take out your contacts

If you wear contact lenses, you should only consider a surgeon that requires you to remove your contact lenses 2-3 weeks (depending on the type of contacts) prior to your initial testing. This is important because contacts change the shape of your cornea and to get the best results your cornea should be given time to convert back to its natural shape prior to testing.

Your eye Shape

During your initial LASIK testing, one of the most important factors to being a good candidate for surgery is the thickness, shape and strength of your cornea. Many of the possible complications associated with this eye surgery can be avoided with proper screening to ensure you are an appropriate candidate and what the best treatment is for your prescription.

Your doctor should test and examine your vision. Most complications happen to patients that were not good candidates for laser eye surgery in the first place, including people with large pupils, thin corneas, severe astigmatism, high or complex prescriptions, or other eye health problems.

Sight considerations

If you have extreme nearsightedness, you should consider an experienced surgeon and/or a surgeon that also performs the Implantable Contact Lens (ICL)  procedure.

Changes in LASIK

LASIK technology has changed over the last few years. When Dr. Edward Wade and Dr. Mark Mayo of the Eye Center of Texas started doing LASIK surgery over 15 years ago, they used metal microkeratomes (blades) to create flaps. Today, Dr. Wade and Dr. Mayo only offer iLASIK – with a combination of IntraLase and Advanced CustomVue Wavefront technology. The IntraLase method is the safest and most precise way to make flaps in the cornea and is completely blade free. Additionally, he only offers patients the Advanced CustomVue Wavefront-guided VISX excimer laser technology to reshape the underlying cornea.

Your fingerprint is unique to you as your visual system is and the laser creates a custom fingerprint of your visual system. With this technology, the laser vision correction ablation automatically centers and automatically tracks the eye and shuts off automatically if there is movement. With iLASIK, there is iris registration. With iris registration, the laser looks at pinpoint areas of the iris and centers the laser vision correction on those specific areas. Bladeless Custom LASIK with iris registration is called ‘iLASIK’ and is the most progressive and advanced way to perform LASIK eye surgery.

Advanced CustomVue

When considering Laser eye surgery, the Advanced CustomVue LASIK vision correction procedure stands in a class of its own with the broadest range of FDA-approved indications. When combined with the power and precision of the IntraLase Method, the Advanced CustomVue procedure represents the most advanced LASIK procedure available to patients today”.

Side effects of LASIK

The most common side effect of LASIK is dry eyes. It usually lasts three to six months and can be treated with medicated eye drops. The other side effects occur in vision at night with halos or glares of light. These are most common in cases of extreme correction and are becoming rare with the iLASIK technology.

Know what your LASIK expectations should be

Your doctor should discuss what to expect before, during and after your surgery, including any questions you might have. It is important to be fully informed before surgery.

Healing time

Following LASIK eye surgery, the healing period is approximately six months. The national average of LASIK enhancements is 5-10%, (Dr. Wade and Dr. Mayo's, combined are 3-5%). A LASIK enhancement is just a fine tuning of the original surgery.

Results are based on your surgeon

Your final vision outcome is more importantly influenced by the skill and experience of the LASIK surgeon and the quality of care before and after your surgery.

History of Dr. Edward Wade

Dr. Wade has performed over 45,000 LASIK procedures and VISX named him one of the ‘Top 100 LASIK surgeons in the U.S.’. He is presently one of a select number of surgeons in Houston that offer “Intacs” for Keratoconus and “ICL”s procedures for extremely nearsighted people who are not candidates for LASIK correction. He is one of the top 20 ReSTOR surgeons in the U.S. and has more experience with the ReSTOR lens than any surgeon in the Houston area. In addition to his practice, he lectures internationally on a variety of eye care subjects, and has published numerous articles.

History of Dr. Mark Mayo

Dr. Mayo had performed over 10,000 LASIK procedures and is on TOP DOCTORS in Houston listings.  He is also the Medical Director for Opticare medical insurer for the entire state of Texas and is one of 15 physicians in the United States on the Physician Leadership Board for United Surgical Partners Corporation.