Say
Bye-Bye to Bifocals with LASIK Surgery
For years, LASIK surgery has been offering people
with a variety of eye afflictions the opportunity to see life
in a new way…a clearer way. As the technology behind LASIK
improves, so do the opportunities it offers. Soon patients with
presbyopia--a condition that has thus far been otherwise untreatable—will
be able to take advantage of the newest advances in LASIK.
Presbyopia is a condition that traditionally plagues people age
40 and up. It is typified by blurred vision when reading or viewing
other things in near proximity. This is due to the increased rigidity
of your eye’s naturally aging corneal lens. Their characteristic
bifocal lenses easily identify people suffering from presbyopia.
Now they can throw your bifocals away!
Nearly 100 million people suffer from this common visual impairment,
and as the population ages more people acquire it every year.
Due to the growing percentage of people afflicted by presbyopia,
the scientific community has been working hard to find a practical
treatment for the condition. If you suspect you may be one of
the afflicted 100 million, you should schedule an appointment
with your ophthalmologist. Common negative side effects of presbyopia
include headaches after reading, and eye pain or fatigue associated
with eyestrain. If you are having trouble viewing text that is
right in front of your face and must move it away to read it clearly,
there is a good chance that your eyes have developed presbyopia.
In the past, your ophthalmologist would have prescribed bifocal
lenses or progressive eyeglass lenses. Your prescription would
strengthen as your eyes continued to weaken. The glasses work
by including bifocal lenses. They are called bifocal because they
include a split-lens with prescriptions for both nearsightedness
and farsightedness. The special construction of your multi-focal
lenses allows your eyes to focus on separate points. Progressive
lenses work by following the same concept but feature a single
lens with a gradually changing prescription, from nearsighted
to farsighted, so that there is no visible separation of the prescriptions
on the lens. Forget your glasses, and you might as well forget
reading.
The newly developed LASIK eye surgery for presbyopia works through
a multi-focal procedure that targets the irregularities that cause
near and farsightedness. It does this by using laser technology
to change the altered corneal shape in zones associated with the
ability to focus. This new procedure is still in an experimental
stage, but has shown strong potential for significantly improving
or even perfecting vision in patients with presbyopia. It has
been tentatively named “presby LASIK” because of its
direct application to the condition presbyopia. It is also referred
to as “multifocal LASIK” because in working to correct
both near and farsightedness it follows the same strategy as multifocal
(or bifocal) lenses.
Specialists researching presby LASIK have found that correcting
parts at the center of the eye’s cornea best treats nearsightedness
in some patients. Other patients with nearsightedness have better
results from laser corrections done on the eye’s peripheral
area. One thing that researchers agree on is that the procedure
is most effective in farsighted patients that also have moderate
issues with farsightedness. They are working to develop a procedure
that effectively corrects both far and nearsightedness at the
same time.
Even once presby LASIK is approved by the FDA, you can rest assured
that eye surgeons offering the procedure will screen their patients
diligently to determine their risk level and will only perform
the procedure on the best candidates. Success rates are not available
yet, but studies have been yielding consistently promising results,
and researchers predict that the surgery will be available soon.