TREATMENTS

CUSTOM LASIK / LASEK

At the Wellington Eye Clinic we have the greatest selection of customization options available anywhere in Ireland.

Custom LASIK is the ability to treat prescriptions on an individual basis. Each patient has a unique corneal curvature, a unique corneal asphericity as well as a unique wavefront pattern that is as unique as a fingerprint.

We can therefore offer customization of a treatment based on:

A device called an Aberrometer is used to measure how light is being bent and refracted through the cornea and onto the retina. It measures the entire optical system of the eye. This measurement is called a wavefront map. This is one way of customizing a treatment as is called A-CAT. A-CAT LASIK uses the wavefront map to outline a specific treatment pattern that is unique to the patient. The goal with Custom LASIK is to optimize the quality of vision for each unique patient.

A 2nd device called a Topolyzer analyses the corneal surface and contours (topography) and we have the ability to use this information to drive a CUSTOM LASIK procedure too. This is called T-CAT and again is designed to deliver better quality vision.

The 3rd way in which we can customize a treatment is with the use of the Custom-Q mode. This gives the surgeon more control over the final asphericity of the cornea ensuring better vision in all conditions, from bright sunlight to low light conditions at dawn & dusk or in really dark conditions such as country roads on a dark night.

The final way in which we can customize treatments is with the use of MONOVISION. This technique works well for patients who are already presbyopic (they need reading glasses or Bifocals / Varifocals) and wish to be entirely free of glasses after surgery. Here the dominant eye is corrected for distance vision and the non-dominant eye is corrected for near vision and this is a very good compromise for a large proportion of patients. During your assessment, the suitability of monovision will be explored.

As the Wavelight Allegretto is the most advanced laser available and the only laser to have been built right from the start for CUSTOM procedures, it is also the only laser currently ready to accept data from the Pentacam device to add another custom procedure to our options. The Wellington Clinic will be one of the first clinics in the world to use Pentacam-guided procedures in the latter half of 2006. The Pentacam has very quickly established itself as the premium device to obtain corneal information of visual significance. The Topolyser is the gold standard for overall topography of the cornea with especially good information from the peripheral cornea. The Pentacam is the new gold standard for topographical information especially from the central cornea (hence the visual quality)

It is very reassuring to know that we have so many options to enhance your visual outcome but it is important to realize we would still do around 70% of our procedures using the “standard” method. As you now know, nothing about this “standard” procedure is standard either as in its most basic mode, the laser still delivers a wavefront-optimized profile.

When one considers the various options available it becomes imperative that you are discussing your options with a qualified ophthalmologist.