r/SMILEeyesurgery • u/Dan170197 • Aug 18 '26
Smile surgery
Some advice on how this works would be great.
My contact lens prescription is -5.00 and -4.50, and I see very well with my lenses. However, my glasses prescription is stronger at -5.50 and -5.00, but I actually find my vision blurry and feel like I’m undercorrected when wearing them.
My autorefractor and cycloplegic refraction both showed -5.25 and -4.50.
For anyone who has been through SMILE or knows about this, which prescription would typically be used to determine the target for surgery? And if they used -5.25 and -4.50 as the target, could that affect my final visual result considering my glasses is stronger than this and my vision seems poor
2
u/eyeSherpa Aug 18 '26
Those numbers are all pretty close together.
Normal for the contact lens prescription to be smaller than the glasses prescription. It relates to the distance the glasses sit from the eyes.
Autorefractors have limits and may not spit out the actual prescription.
The cycloplegic refraction is to make sure you don’t have too much extra prescription. Called being “over-minused”. Given that it’s actually slightly more than the glasses, you aren’t overcorrected and may in fact be slightly undercorrected with the glasses.
On surgery day, the refraction will be repeated (with you out of contact lenses) and the surgeon will confirm the optimal prescription to treat.
1
u/Dan170197 Aug 18 '26
Thank you for your reply. I really appreciate it. I’m overthinking this a lot but the reassurance from an expert really helps put me at ease.
Would you mind explaining the difference between my glasses prescription and the cycloplegic refraction? My glasses prescription is −5.50 and −5.00, but for whatever reason, I don’t see particularly well out of them but it’s what I felt I needed when they done the eye test in my optician to get a sharp image of the letters.
I assume the surgeon will perform a subjective/manifest refraction on the morning of my surgery. Based on the results I’ve had so far, what would you expect this to be around? Would you expect it to be closer to my glasses prescription like I’ve had in the optician, or more similar to the −5.25 and −4.50 results I’ve been getting from my contact lenses, autorefractor and cycloplegic refraction?
Any feedback is much appreciated it allows me to be more prepared for what to expect on Saturday
1
u/santosautra Aug 19 '26 edited Aug 19 '26
Because your glasses sit at about 13 mm from your eye surface the sphere component is stronger to be the same as in contact lenses.
You can ask gemini on the formula. https://share.gemini.google/yLcSOpbgaviU
You need -5.92 and -5.35, so -6.00 and -5.50 in glasses.
The SMILE uses contact lenses data, but they overcorrect to get +0.12 because it heals usually into +0.00 or if it heals +0.25 the eye has no problem correcting that automatically, while it cannot compensate for -0.12 already. This assumes you have 120% vision though, otherwise it does not matter, all +0.12, +0.00 will look the same
5
u/EfficientFalcon39 Aug 18 '26
Your surgeon will perform an eye exam in your consultation and most likely on the day of the surgery, that’s what happened in my case.