LASIK

What is LASIK surgery?

LASIK (laser in-situ keratomileusis) is the most popular refractive surgery performed today and has been FDA approved for more than 30 years. In the United States 16 million people have had LASIK, and 40 million worldwide. LASIK surgery is performed in the office and is painless using numbing drops and no injections. People with nearsightedness, farsightedness, and astigmatism require glasses or contacts to correct the mismatch between the power of their cornea, the clear front window of the eye, and the length of the eyeball. Lasik painlessly and precisely corrects that mismatch by permanently reshaping the cornea in a laser procedure that takes less than 15 minutes for both eyes. Vision is improved immediately, with most patients driving and returning to work the next day. LASIK improves quality of life for those who are tired of the hassle of glasses and contacts. 

Our surgeons were pioneers in the development of this technology and are among the most experienced in the world: together they have performed more than 130,000 LASIK and PRK procedures on every major laser platform in LASIK’s history, and Dr. Speaker has been performing LASIK since 1993. There are three different types of LASIK surgery that are offered at the state-of-the-art Laser & Corneal Surgery Associates Centers in New York City and White Plains. Wavelight Plus is the most advanced form of vision correction surgery and only offered by a select group of surgeons, in addition to Wavefront Optimized, and Contura. After extensive testing of your eyes in our offices, including the latest advance in diagnostic technology called SightMap, our surgeons will determine which procedure will provide you with the best outcome. Our advanced technologies allow us to design a customized treatment to give you the visual freedom independent of glasses and contacts that you seek.

Why Your LASIK Surgeon Should Be a Cornea Specialist

LASIK reshapes the cornea, the clear front surface of your eye. That makes it, by definition, corneal surgery.

Yet most LASIK is performed by surgeons who never specialized in the cornea. Fewer than one in five ophthalmologists go on to complete a fellowship in corneal surgery, an additional year devoted entirely to how the cornea works, how it heals, and what can go wrong with it.

Both of our founding surgeons completed that fellowship. Dr. Speaker went further: he founded the Cornea Fellowship program at New York Eye and Ear Infirmary and spent 25 years training the corneal specialists other practices are proud to have.

When you choose a corneal specialist for LASIK, you’re choosing a surgeon who is an expert in the exact part of the eye being operated on. That’s not a luxury. It’s what the procedure deserves.

Experience Is the Technology

Modern lasers are extraordinary instruments, but they do not make decisions. Every step of your treatment involves judgment: whether you are a candidate at all, how your measurements should be interpreted, how your treatment should be planned, how the procedure should be adapted to your anatomy, and how your healing should be managed afterward. Those judgment calls are learned one procedure at a time, and our surgeons have made them across more than 130,000 procedures and every generation of LASIK technology. See what to expect at your consultation.

Experience the Future of Vision with WaveLight® Plus LASIK

Discover a brighter future and freedom from the hassles of glasses and contacts. Using the state-of-the-art WaveLight® Refractive Suite, we provide advanced laser vision correction designed to deliver outstanding accuracy, proven reliability, and superior outcomes.

Why Choose WaveLight® LASIK?

Ready to see the world in high definition? Contact us today to schedule your evaluation and discuss the benefits and risks with our expert team.

Nervous About Eye Surgery? That’s Normal

Fear holds more patients back than candidacy or cost, and nearly every patient tells us afterward that the procedure was far easier than they imagined. Our surgeons believe in the procedure enough to have had it themselves and to have performed it on their own family members. If you need extra time on the day of surgery, you get extra time.

Reasons to choose Dr. Mark Speaker for your LASIK surgery:

• Pioneer in laser vision correction — He was one of the first surgeons involved in laser vision correction trials, participated in developing the femtosecond lasers now used in LASIK and SMILE, and performed the first SMILE procedure in Rome in 1993.
• Extensive hands-on experience — He’s performed over 70,000 LASIK and PRK procedures and more than 4,500 corneal cross-linking (CXL) procedures, plus numerous ICLs, corneal transplants, and anterior segment reconstructions.
• Trusted by demanding professionals — Pilots, athletes, physicians, and military/law enforcement officers seek him out specifically because of his track record and precision.
• Elite training and recognition — MD/PhD from Albert Einstein College of Medicine, fellowship at Wills Eye Hospital, a VISX Star Surgeon award, and repeat inclusion in Best Doctors in America and New York Magazine’s top doctors lists.
• Personal conviction in the procedure — He’s had LASIK done on himself and performed it on family members, reflecting genuine confidence in the outcomes he delivers to patients.