The good news is that there is no set maximum age to have refractive surgery. There is a minimum age requirement. Federal guidelines state that you must be 18 or older to have LASIK or PRK , however many times we like to wait into the early 20’s because we want your eyes to be fully developed with a stable prescription.
As you age, other changes occur to the eyes, and, sometimes with age, cataracts develop . If the patient is in the cataract age group, we often recommend that they have a refractive cataract surgery instead of LASIK or PRK. In that type of cataract surgery, the lens is removed and replaced with an implant. Many times you may not need any glasses after that kind of cataract surgery, so it makes LASIK unneccessary. However, other times a fine tuning is needed after cataract surgery and we can fine tune your vision if needed with LASIK or PRK. refractive surgery is a great option for many patients. Of course your eyes need to be healthy and you need to be a perfect candidate.
Dr. Holzman looks for the following criteria in every patient to determine if he or she is a good candidate for refractive surgery:
Do you have enough corneal tissue and what is the amount of correction needed?
Do you have a stable RX?
How is your overall eye health?
What is your ocular history?
