How typical is such vision regression?
If people say their vision has gotten worse, most of the time they’re talking about their reading vision, primarily because they’re getting older. Deterioration in reading vision happens to everyone around age 40 to 45. If what they really mean is that they have become more nearsighted again, that’s pretty rare; that’s maybe 5 percent of Lasik patients. That 5 percent refers to a significant change, about a -1 diopter or more, over a 10-year period. Many of these patients can successfully undergo an enhancement procedure to get rid of that residual nearsightedness. I should point out that with the technology used in Lasik more than five years ago, there was a higher incidence of regression because of the way the cornea was reshaped. It’s highly unusual for someone’s vision to revert to the original prescription. I’ve never seen that, and if that did occur, it could indicate that other things are going on with the eye, such as a cataract. Distance vision should not drift appreciably onc
