Regardless of what you do for a living, Orange County LASIK surgery can improve your quality of life and eliminate the need for glasses or contact lenses to see. If you are curious to know how LASIK can help your specific career goals, you have come to the right place. In this article, we will discuss five types of career paths and the vision requirements for each one.
5 Careers with Specific Vision Requirements
Many different types of jobs require workers to have clear vision to perform their duties. While glasses and eye contacts are acceptable aids, they often pose a hindrance. Here are five professionals that are highly encouraged to get LASIK eye surgery:
1. Firefighters
As a first responder, you are exposing yourself to fire, water, and harmful contaminants like smoke, debris and fumes on a regular basis. You are putting out fires and rescuing people from emergency situations all while wearing heavy protective gear. You need to be able to see your surroundings clearly and effortlessly in order to perform your duties properly. Visual requirements are set by your local fire department and there is an eye exam that you must pass in order to work.
While you are allowed to wear glasses or contacts to do your job as a firefighter, these visual aids are not ideal. Glasses can create problems when you are on the front line as a firefighter. Your glasses may not fit quite right under your helmet or face shield. Consequently, the frames of your glasses could bend or become crooked. The lenses of your glasses are also likely to fog up when you come in contact with steam, smoke, or water, which is inevitable in your line of work.
While you may think that contacts would be the next best option, you’ll want to think again. Just like glasses, contacts also pose certain challenges on the job. Contacts can potentially absorb toxic chemicals and put your health in jeopardy. Contacts can also shift, tear, or fall out as you try to perform your duties.
Laser eye surgery cost is worth gaining the convenience and freedom you need to fulfill your responsibilities as a firefighter. Your vision will feel more natural and clear after undergoing refractive surgery.
2. Commercial Airline Pilots
Do you fly a commercial plane for a living? Glasses and contacts can be a hassle to deal with when you are on a long flight. The Federal Aviation Administration requires pilots to meet the following criteria:
- Distance visual acuity of 20/20 or better in each eye
- Intermediate visual acuity of 20/40 or better in each eye
- Near visual acuity of 20/40 or better in each eye
- Color vision
The vast majority of patients treated by Orange County LASIK surgeon Dr. Moosa achieve at least 20/20 vision after their surgery. Patients who have mild myopia (nearsightedness) in particular benefit from LASIK.
For most airline pilots, side effects like haziness typically stabilize within three months and night-glare completely diminishes within six months after LASIK. Commercial airlines like American Airlines offer a 6-week healing and stabilization period for pilots getting LASIK surgery. United Airlines is known to require a 12-week healing period after LASIK, but some airlines allow pilots to return to their job as soon as they have fully recovered from LASIK provided that an Aviation Medical Examiner (AME) flight-certifies them.
3. Astronauts
Astronauts are required to have at least 1,000 hours of pilot-in-command time in a jet aircraft as well as 20/20 vision. The policy on vision health is extremely strict. Up until the year 2007, NASA did not even allow people who had corrective eye surgery to become astronauts. After years of research, NASA officials have come to understand that LASIK surgery is indeed safe for astronauts working in space.
NASA is known to have developed a variety of technological innovations such as artificial limbs, wireless headphones, CAT scans, and home insulation- just to name a few. We can also credit NASA for their part in designing LASIK technology. NASA had developed Eye Tracking Device technology which was made to track astronauts’ eyes while traveling in space and to understand how weightlessness impacts a human’s frame of reference. NASA’s approval of LASIK is the added reassurance you need to know that the procedure has safe and effective standards.
4. Professional athletes
Every sport has different visual requirements. Basic eye exams are not enough to assess a competitive athlete’s visual skills. An athlete needs better than 20/20 vision to be able to catch a ball, track a puck on the ice rink, or make moves in a split second. Most professional athletes work with a sports vision optometrist who conducts athlete vision testing.
We rarely see professional athletes wear glasses while playing a game. The main reason why athletes avoid wearing glasses is for safety in addition to the visual aid being a hindrance. Glasses have a tendency to fog up and cloud under harsh conditions. They also cannot be worn underwater. Most athletes either use contacts or opt for refractive surgery like LASIK. As we mentioned before, contacts have a tendency to fall out or even tear while performing labor-intensive work.
If you are a professional triathlete, your vision needs to be sharp for three different sports: swimming, biking, and running. Transition time is vital. You cannot take time swapping from glasses to contacts in the middle of a triathlon. LASIK is exactly what athletes need to stay on top of your game.
It is important to note that you would need to be careful when it comes to the initial healing phase right after LASIK when it comes to dangerous combat sports like boxing, wrestling, and martial arts.
5. Lifeguards
A lifeguard on duty at the pool or beach needs to be scanning the water at all times to make sure the general public is safe. You need to have excellent near and far vision. You also need to be ready to jump in the water at a moment’s notice which means you cannot rely on glasses as a visual aid. Swimming with contacts can be risky and lead to an eye infection so that is why LASIK is the next best option.
Do you work as a lifeguard in Southern California and want to know where to find the best laser eye surgery in Orange County? Consider scheduling a consultation with Excel Laser Vision Institute today.
Whether or not you work in any of the career fields we discussed, you can feel confident that the LASIK surgery performed in the LASIK center near Yorba Linda is a safe procedure with an effective outcome: clear vision. Clear vision is a vital part of everyday life.
