Correcting a moving target
Refractive surgery corrects the prescription your eyes have at the time of surgery. It does not stop them from changing afterwards.
That single fact is the reason stability matters. If your prescription is still shifting, correcting it now means correcting a number that will not be your number in a few years, and the correction will need revisiting sooner than it otherwise would.
So before the question of whether you can have surgery comes the question of whether now is the right time.
How stability is actually established
Not by how your vision feels. By records.
Your surgeon wants to see your prescription across several years, ideally from consecutive examinations, to establish whether it has been drifting and in which direction. A single current reading, however precise, says nothing about the trend.
This is why we ask for prescription history before you travel rather than only measuring on the day. The measurement here tells us where you are now. Your history tells us whether that number is standing still.
If you have changed optician or moved country, gathering those records takes time. Starting that before you plan a trip is worth doing, because the alternative is arriving without the piece of information the decision rests on.
What tends to make prescriptions shift
Age is the most predictable factor. Short-sightedness commonly progresses through the teens and into the early twenties, then settles for most people, though the age at which it settles varies considerably between individuals.
Sustained close work has been associated with progression, which is one reason people whose work is entirely at screen distance sometimes see slower stabilisation.
Certain health conditions affect refraction, sometimes temporarily. Pregnancy, some medications and blood sugar fluctuation can all move a reading, and a measurement taken during one of those periods may not represent your settled prescription.
And there is a later stage of change that is not about instability at all. Presbyopia arrives for nearly everyone and affects near focus rather than distance. It is a separate conversation, and correcting distance vision does not prevent it.
Why waiting is sometimes the recommendation
Being told to come back in a year is not a rejection. It is usually the answer that protects the result.
If your records show a prescription that is still moving, having surgery now produces a correction that starts drifting from the day it is done. Waiting for the trend to flatten means the correction lands on a number that will still be yours.
It is worth asking, if you are told this, what specifically would need to be true for the answer to change and when it would be reasonable to be reassessed. A vague instruction to wait is less useful than a specific one.
Timing questions particular to overseas patients
If you are gathering records specifically for this, get examinations spaced apart rather than several in one month. Readings taken close together do not demonstrate stability over time.
If you wear contact lenses, they need to be out well before the measurement, and rigid lenses require considerably longer than soft ones. A prescription measured on a cornea still shaped by a lens is not your prescription. We wrote about that separately, and it is the single most common reason an examination has to be repeated.
If your records are in another language, send them anyway. Numbers and standard notation carry across, and our coordination team will tell you if anything is missing.
What to ask at consultation
What your records show about the trend, in plain terms.
Whether anything in your history suggests waiting, and if so what would need to change.
Whether any current medication or health condition could be affecting the measurement.
And how presbyopia is likely to fit into your future, since that conversation belongs at the planning stage rather than as a surprise years later.
Before you book
Send your prescription history over as many years as you can gather, along with any previous eye records and your travel dates. That preliminary review will not replace the examination here, but it will tell you whether the timing looks right before you commit to flights.
Our international coordination team will tell you what is missing from what you send.