A key guide on the condition or health of your eyes

A wide range of clinics can be found in a host of locations. On the whole the surgeries for eye treatment take place in big cities like Sheffield, Newcastle or Cardiff. If you are searching for eye surgery close by then laser eye surgery in London could be the place for you. Most surgeries are well-established, which means that they will have long waiting lists. An advantage of this means that the clinic staff are vastly experienced. In a lot of cases, they may have affiliation with state registered opticians so a sensible idea could be to ask your own optician for their honest assessment before contacting an eye surgeon.

The specific technology being used by ophthalmologists will change depending on the eye condition being treated. For an invasive cornea surgical operation a Ziemer LDV Femtosecond precision laser is used. This piece of equipment enables a surgeon to operate on an eye without the need for a blade. A new form of non-invasive imaging technology, OCT (Ocular Coherence Tomographer), is used for mapping the shape, size and contours of an eye. For more complicated and specialist ailments there is also treatments such as Anti-VEGF drugs and Fluorescein angiography. These are simply a few of the procedures and equipment that are currently in use by qualified ophthalmologists.

Lasik eye surgery, a form of refractive surgery, is used for correcting myopia, hyperopia and astigmatism. This form of surgery is usually one alternative to wearing lenses or corrective glasses, which lots of people don't like wearing. The procedure is a bit like other surgical corrective procedures such as photo-refractive keratectomy and refractive surgery, making it a common answer to solving bad eye sight. The cornea is remodelled and its curvature is reshaped during the procedure. There is a small probability that the eye will reject the surgery and revert back to its original state, however any other side effects will be at a minimum.

A cornea transplant takes places when a cornea becomes damaged or diseased. For instance, if someone is stricken with Fuchs dystrophy (a corneal diseases which affects patients who are aged 50+) or Keratoconus (a disease which causes the cornea to thin and change shape) then a cornea transplant operation may be the only solution. In a cornea transplant the diseased part of the cornea is replaced by donated healthy corneal tissue in order to restore the damage - the graft coming from a deceased donor. Keratoconus surgery or cornea transplant are the most severe treatment methods as in some cases these conditions can be managed with corrective lenses.

Macular degeneration is a condition which affects older adults and results in loss of vision in the macula because of damage to the retina. When it develops it can cause impaired visions, specifically when reading or when trying to recognise faces. There are two forms of macular degeneration; dry and wet. The first is caused when the cells in the macula thin and degenerate and this is normally the more common form of the disease. On the other hand, wet macular degeneration is less common and is caused when blood vessels grow abnormally in the choriocapillaris behind the retina. As the progression of macular degeneration can be slowed by taking vitamin supplements with high doses of antioxidants eye surgery is usually not necessary.

Now that you've finished reading through the entirety of this informative article you should have a clearer understanding of the UK's most common eye conditions and diseases. However, if you feel your eye condition is more serious it's best to get your eyes checked over by a trained ophthalmologist as soon as possible.