{"id":1198,"date":"2025-10-17T10:37:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T10:37:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/silm.orgo.ee\/an-optometrist-explains-when-is-laser-surgery-not-an-option\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T14:51:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T14:51:15","slug":"an-optometrist-explains-when-is-laser-surgery-not-an-option","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/silm.orgo.ee\/en\/an-optometrist-explains-when-is-laser-surgery-not-an-option\/","title":{"rendered":"An optometrist explains: when is laser surgery not an option?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>There are a number of contraindications to LASIK surgery<\/strong>, i.e. situations where<strong> laser surgery<\/strong> is not recommended or even not permitted.<\/p>\n\n<p><strong>Please note!<\/strong> This is one of the most important reasons why you should choose your <strong>laser surgeon<\/strong> carefully. An experienced specialist will asses the condition of your eyes thoroughly and help you avoid the risks.<\/p>\n\n<p><strong>Optometrist Gerli Jones<\/strong> explains when LASIK surgery is not a suitable option:<\/p>\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Cornea too thin<\/strong>If the cornea is less than 480 \u00b5m in thickness, surgery is contraindicated.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Age under 18<\/strong>Vision has not yet stabilised in young people. Generally, laser surgery is not performed after <strong>the age of 45<\/strong> because by then you may need <strong>reading glasses<\/strong>. In this case (after age 45), fitting <strong>multifocal intraocular lenses<\/strong> may be considered.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Keratoconus or other corneal ectasia conditions<\/strong>These conditions mean that the cornea is already <strong>too thin, weak or stretched out<\/strong>, making it unsuitable for laser surgery.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Active eye infection<\/strong>For example, herpes simplex keratitis, uveitis, blepharitis, or conjunctivitis.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Acute systemic autoimmune disease<\/strong>For example, <strong>rheumatoid arthritis, lupus,<\/strong> or <strong>Sjogren&#8217;s syndrome<\/strong>. These diseases can cause eye inflammation and <strong>slow down the healing of the eye\u2019s surface<\/strong> after surgery. In the case of autoimmune diseases, superficial contact-free surgeries should be avoided due to delayed epithelialisation.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Pregnancy and breastfeeding<\/strong><strong>Hormonal changes<\/strong> may affect vision stability vision and limit <strong>the use of post-operative eye medications<\/strong>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Unstable refraction<\/strong>Surgery is contraindicated if vision has changed by more than <strong>one dioptre<\/strong> in the last <strong>two years<\/strong>. In this case, it is recommended to have another check-up in one year.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n<p>A thorough pre-operative examination will give a complete overview of your eye health and help determine whether laser surgery is an option, and if so, which one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are a number of contraindications to LASIK surgery, i.e. situations where laser surgery is not recommended or even not permitted. Please note! This is one of the most important reasons why you should choose your laser surgeon carefully. An experienced specialist will asses the condition of your eyes thoroughly and help you avoid the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/silm.orgo.ee\/en\/an-optometrist-explains-when-is-laser-surgery-not-an-option\/\">Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1199,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[47,44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-an-optometrist-explains","category-laser-surgery"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/silm.orgo.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/silm.orgo.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/silm.orgo.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silm.orgo.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silm.orgo.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1198"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/silm.orgo.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1198\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1330,"href":"https:\/\/silm.orgo.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1198\/revisions\/1330"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silm.orgo.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/silm.orgo.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silm.orgo.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silm.orgo.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}