Traditional LASIK has been around since the 1990s and has been performed on thousands of people around the world.  It has produced excellent results for the majority of people who have utilized this life-changing procedure.

Custom LASIK is a more recent form of laser eye surgery that uses a 3-D mapping system to diagnose the exact contours of each of your eyes. This data then guides the laser in your treatment. This is known as Wavefront-guided LASIK and it yields excellent vision results. Traditional LASIK does not use a Wavefront system.

The Wavefront system gathers very detailed and precise information so that your LASIK treatment is extremely precise.  Wavefront custom LASIK can correct both lower and higher-order aberrations whereas traditional LASIK corrects only lower.

Traditional LASIK

No wavefront 3-D map is made. The LASIK treatment is the same as when such maps are made, but it is not guided by this wavefront map data. What guides it? Less detailed information guides it, which is gathered from several optical machines:

  • An auto-refractor – a machine that measures your prescription using infrared light. You can’t see that light because it’s outside our visual range. You look at an image in the machine and the auto-refractor changes the image size until it comes to a clear focus for you. Sensors are picking up the reflected infrared light from your eyes.
  • A corneal topographer – again, you look into this machine through a special opening and sensors detect several hundred points on each eye. Software then connects these points to create a colored map of each eye.
  • A pupilometer – a handheld instrument which measures the diameter of the eye’s pupil, both in darkness and in light. This is important for planning the exact treatment area around the pupil.

Your eye surgeon puts all this data together and forms a clear understanding of how your cornea needs to be reshaped.

Custom LASIK

LASIK is an excellent choice for many patients. Custom LASIK is a laser vision correction procedure that helps your LASIK surgeon further customize the correction to your individual eyes.

Custom LASIK uses Wavefront Technology to measure the way light travels through your eye. This technology performs a detailed analysis of your eye that examines the entire optical system. The instrument used provides information about the unique visual characteristics of your eye, allowing for an additional level of data about your vision.  This, in turn, enables your LASIK surgeon to further customize your vision correction. The data is used to guide the laser during your custom LASIK laser vision correction procedure for optimal results.

If you have any questions about traditional LASIK vs. custom LASIK or would like to schedule an evaluation, please contact Inland Eye Institute at 909-937-9230 or inlandeye.com. Dr. Blanton in Rancho Cucamonga can help you decide which vision correction procedure is right for you.