Whether you play basketball, football, or are a swimmer, you depend on sharp vision to win the game or race. Many athletes struggle with sweat dripping into their eyes and irritating their contacts, or prescription glasses slipping down their nose every few seconds. Swimmers have an added struggle as chlorine can quickly ruin a pair of contacts, and prescription goggles are costly. LASIK eye surgery is the perfect vision correction procedure for sports players who struggle with poor eyesight.
Focus on the Game, Not Your Eyes
Your team or coach depends on you to keep your mind in the moment. When your glasses fall, or your contacts slip, you lose that edge above your competition. Suddenly, you’re not thinking strategically or giving your best because all you can think about is your blurry vision. If you’re significantly nearsighted or farsighted, you can’t simply take out your contacts or throw your glasses in a case. You need to see clearly to win.
The best time to correct your eyesight is during your “offseason,” which varies depending on which sport(s) you play. However, your LASIK candidacy may rely on your chosen game as well. High-impact sports players may need PRK (Photorefractive Keratectomy) instead to avoid unnecessary flap complications with LASIK.
How Vision Correction Procedures Work
Before you have LASIK or PRK, you’ll come into one of our Pennsylvania locations for a thorough eye examination to determine which procedure will work best for you. Our eye doctors will discuss all the details involved and how you can best prepare for your laser eye surgery.
Both LASIK and PRK are quick procedures with little to no discomfort. The laser requires as few as 1-2 minutes for each eye. Each option reshapes the curvature of your cornea to give you 20/20 or better vision. With LASIK, One of our skilled eye surgeons will create a tissue flap using the surface layer of your eye. The flap is folded back to give the laser access to your cornea and placed back over your eye when the laser’s done. PRK works much the same, but instead of creating a flap, our eye surgeons remove the corneal surface layer.
The recovery process will depend on which eye surgery you undergo. Our LASIK patients can typically return to work within 48 hours, but PRK patients may need a full week to recover. This is because the flap protects your cornea from infection, but PRK requires a protective lens while your eye regrows the surface layer removed for the procedure.
Amateur and professional athletes alike have had laser eye surgery. You may not realize just how much your poor eyesight impacts your ability to give your all on the court, field, or in the pool.
If you’re interested in better vision through laser eye surgery, please contact our ophthalmologists at Northeastern Eye Institute in Pennsylvania today at 855-204-6888 to see if LASIK is right for you. Our eye doctors serve patients in Scranton Wilkes-Barre, Hazleton and throughout Northeastern Pennsylvania.