Why should I consider having laser eye surgery?

There are many reasons why patients may want to consider laser eye surgery. Principally people having laser eye surgery are a young population, although occasionally they’re older and it’s often a lifestyle choice.

For example, someone who can’t wear contact lenses but needs to wear spectacles who has an active lifestyle, be that mountaineering, sport or something similar or someone who wants to join the forces, are working in the fire brigade or police, laser eye surgery is a very effective and good treatment for them.

It’s very interesting talking about the military that in the United States most of the military are treated. The Army, the Navy and even the Airforce pilots, if they have a spectacle correction, will undergo laser eye surgery.  And a lot of the pioneering work was done in a San Diego naval base on American military. The fact that American militaries are undergoing laser eye surgery, these highly trained personnel, shows us how safe laser eye surgery has become.

Over the last 20-25 years the technologies really advanced. Both in terms of how we can measure the eye and do what we call diagnostics and also in terms of how effective the lasers are. So the combination of this technology and our understanding of laser eye surgery makes it a much safer procedure than it was 20 years ago, as evidenced by the American military allowing their highly trained expensive personnel to undergo this procedure.

More about Robert Morris

Rob Morris is a Consultant Ophthalmic Surgeon at The Grange Eye Consultants. His special expertise is in cataract and refractive surgery, including Refractive Lens Exchange, and adult squint. He has over 30 years experience in treating people with eye problems. Rob Morris founded Grange Eye Consultants to manage the increasing demand for more complex refractive surgery. He leads clinical trials investigating novel eye treatments. He is currently Medical Director at Optegra Eye Hospitals.