AFA clinic will offer LASIK eye surgery

The Air Force Academy’s eye clinic will soon start offering another form of laser surgery.

LASIK, which the Air Force shied away from until last month, corrects vision by using a laser on the eye’s lens after doctors cut a flap in the cornea, or outer covering of the eye. Doctors like LASIK (laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis) because patients recover in about a week, much faster than the three months it takes to recover from the procedure now used, called photorefractive keratectomy, or PRK.

Because LASIK involves cutting into the eye, the Air Force banned it for pilots and some other aircrew members. The thought was that incisions into the eye could cause problems for pilots who eject from planes at high altitude.

The academy runs one of the busiest eyesurgery centers in the military, with 12,000 patients since 2001 — including Air Force members and patients from other service branches in the Pikes Peak region.

Lt. Col. James Burden, an eye surgeon at the academy, expects it to get even busier when the clinic gets a new laser for the LASIK procedure.

By regulation, Air Force pilots are required to have nearly perfect vision. For those who didn’t, dreams of flight were out of reach, until laser surgery.

“Basically, if you’ll be flying any type of aircraft you don’t want to be encumbered with glasses or contact lenses,” Burden said. “In a combat environment, the fewer things that are a hassle, the better.”

The surgeries are increasingly popular with those who keep their feet on the ground. Burden said scores of soldiers have gotten the surgery because it allows them to get rid of their glasses or contacts before heading to war.