Hi Karen!
Thanks for reaching out. Your myopia sounds very severe!
It’s important in patients who report severely high degrees of myopia to consider concomitant ocular or systemic disorders including Marfans, Weil-Marchesani, Sticklers / Wagners syndrome etcetera.
Such conditions don’t automatically disqualify you from refractive surgery, however a comprehensive assessment would be required to exclude these conditions.
Even patients with severe myopia alone may have concomitant problems like retinal holes or detachment, early cataracts or retinal pathology.
In general, such high degrees of myopia as you have described are not normally suitable for LASIK nor epiLasik as the cornea is not usually thick enough to allow the safe performance of surgery. In addition, the incidence of complications including glare and haloes normally mean that most patients do not choose this option.
All is not lost though! If your anterior chamber depth is sufficient, the option of an Implantable Collamer Lens within the eye provides excellent vision, with minimal side-effects.
The surgery takes less than 10 minutes per eye, and is fully reversible with a much more acceptable side-effect profile for patients with pre-existing severe myopia. Do consider this option and we would love to see you in clinic for an assessment after which we can consider your options fully!
