LASIK and Night Vision | Vision and Eye Care
Night vision problems have been reported as common side effects of traditional LASIK. If you have Custom LASIK, they are far less of a problem. That is because of the way your eyes are diagnosed in those two ways of doing LASIK.
Diagnosis for Traditional LASIK In Traditional (early) LASIK, a phoropter was used, which is how prescriptions are determined for glasses and contact lenses. A phoropter is a floor-standing device with many lenses. You sit looking through its aperture at the vision cha
lasik and night vision vision and eye care
The information thus gathered is used to correct three vision problems:
›› Nearsightedness
›› Farsightedness
›› Astigmatism.
That meant that Traditional LASIK corrected only these three problems, and only to the same extent that glasses or contacts do it. These three problems are known as the Lower Order Aberrations of your eyes.
Diagnosis f
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or Custom LASIK In Custom LASIK, Wavefront technology is used for a far more accurate diagnosis. Instead of sitting at a phoropter, you sit at a large system which shines a light into each eye. It then measures and records the nature of the light reflected back from your two eyes.
The computer in this system converts this light data into two colored 3D maps showing the microscopic contours of each eye. These maps contain so much information that a more effective treatment can be based on them,
Category › Vision and Eye Care
Title › LASIK and Night Vision | Vision and Eye Care
correcting not just the Lower Order Aberrations but also the Higher Order Aberrations.
What Are Higher Order Aberrations? They are mostly night vision problems:
›› Halos around lights
›› Starbursts (spiky brightness around light sources)
›› Ghosting (faint duplicate images)
›› Glare
Traditional LASIK improved visual acuity but left your eyes with their existing Higher Order Aberrations. Therefore they were noticed after treatment as defects in your quality of vision, and referred to as side effects.
Custom LASIK improves visual acuity and reduces or eliminates night vision problems as well.
Pupil Size and Traditional LASIK Part of screening for good LASIK candidates includes measuring pupil size. If your pupils dilate wider than average they are admitting more light into the eye in dim lighting conditions. If you are asking for Traditional LASIK and already have night vision problems, you would not be a good candidate.
If your pupils are not too extremely large, your eye surgeon might be able to do Traditional LASIK safely. He could use a “blend zone”, using Variable Spot Scanning (VSS) technology to create a larger optical zone, effectively reducing these aberrations and decreasing night glare.
A Custom LASIK procedure would be a better option, as it would treat the existing night vision problems.