SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — For people who require glasses or contact lenses to see, LASIK can be a great option to eliminate them both.

Alyssa Welk has been a glasses and contact lens wearer for the last 16 years. After getting tired of the hassle, she decided to look into having LASIK performed.

“I had just kind of finally gotten tired of the monotonous routine, every day of either having to put my contacts in or my glasses on before I could either get up and tend to my daughter in the middle of the night, or just get ready for the day,” Welk said.

LASIK is a form of laser vision correction. Dr. Andrew Ollerton says it’s approved for people ages 18 and older.

“The main thing is that your prescription needs to be stable. So if your prescription has been stable about a year, then it’s a good time to look into it. And usually that age, late twenties, late twenties, thirties, those are kind of the ideal time to do LASIK surgery. Cause it seems like most prescriptions stabilize around that time,” Dr. Ollerton said.

He says prescriptions can change when people are younger, as well as during pregnancy or breastfeeding.

Since Welk’s prescription had stabilized, she was able to get the surgery.

“The next day I went in for my first post-op and I was 20/15, so better than 20/20 within, you know, it wasn’t even 24 hours after having the LASIK procedure. I was able to see 20/15, you know, and that was better than what I had even expected to be seeing at that point,” Welk said.

Ollerton says people usually won’t need to have vision correction surgery again in life, but in some situations it can happen.

“I mean, there are some situations where yes, but usually, with LASIK, you know, it, it changes the shape of your cornea. So once your corneal shape has changed, that is, is not going to change at all anymore. So that stays stable and that makes sure that your vision, or your, your cornea is focusing the light where it needs to be,” Ollerton said.

He says people can expect a quick recovery time too, with most going back to work after about a day or two.

“I pushed it off for years and I wish that I would’ve gotten it sooner. You know, I’m in my late twenties, early thirties now, and I wish I would’ve gotten it done sooner,” Welk said.

Ollerton says the cost of Lasik is $3,500 for both eyes, which includes all follow up visits at Sanford Ophthalmology.