LASIK and Children

LASIK has the ability to treat patient's suffering from a wider range of vision disabilities delivering as close to perfect sight as possible. It reduces having to wear glasses or put contact lenses into your eyes. LASIK is the most popular refractive procedure in America with a low amount of complications and a high satisfaction rate. That may make you wonder why the FDA has only approved the use of LASIK among adults aged 18 or older.

The simple answer is that, unlike adults eyes, a child's eyes is shaping and forming right up until they reach their early 20's. This means that if a doctor would perform LASIK on a child, that their eyes could change by the time they're older. This would produce a long line of surgery and unstable results. There are recent experimentations into LASIK procedures and children. Though the risks haven't decreased, some children have special conditions that will over ride the possible risks of LASIK.

Like every rule there is an exception to kids having LASIK eye surgery. If the child has a severe disorder or an extreme condition, and the usual treatments haven't proved productive. Then they will be a candidate for LASIK, Particularly for children with a lazy eye, or an amblyopia. An amblyopia is caused by needing high prescription for glasses that creates a difference between the two eyes. Making one eye more dominant and working it double time for the weaker, less dominant eye. This creates a great imbalance that gives you many vision problems that can be fixed with the help of LASIK. They may try a number of procedures before choosing to do LASIK, however. Things like contacts, glasses, patches, and eye drops will have to fail to treat the condition before laser eye surgery will even be considered.

Give great hope for parents with children suffering from vision problems, and believe that LASIK is their only opportunity to positively affect the child's vision. However, is important to understand that because LASIK in children is an experimental procedure. The risks are not well understood. In adults, the complications that arise from this procedure are minimal at best, but with the developing child's eye it's unclear as to how this will affect the growth of the cornea and the surrounding tissues. Some day LASIK for children might be available, but for right now it is still in its experimental phase.

The Medical Management Services Group ,http://www.seewithlasik.com/docs/lasik-questions.html , See With Lasik