corrective eye surgery
Posted , 5 users are following.
I have age related presbyopia, ie my lenses are becoming less flexible and my near vision is thus poor. Until this started happening a couple of years ago I had near perfect vision. My optician has also advised me I have very early onset cataracts - which was a bit of a shock but he said that it would be some time before they caused any bother or needed anything doing. I have difficulty with getting glasses to suit as my long distance is only slightly affected but my near vision needs help. Single vision or reading glasses are great for counteracting this but I'm continually having to put them on and take them off as I cant see to walk around with them on but cant read anything without them. I tried varifocals but the lack of lens space given to the near vision bit at the bottom really isnt sufficient to be comfortable. Is there any procedure like Lasik or similar that can help correct this type of vision loss or are laser techniques only suitable for corneal problems. Best advice to everyone - dont get old 😦 it's no fun.
0 likes, 3 replies
Guest loxie
Posted
I would say there are not too many options, and if you have the start of cataracts it might not be a great idea to do them. An option if the time comes for cataract surgery would be to have them correct one eye for distance and one for near. I would highly recommend trying this first with contact lenses if the time comes. As far as your glasses, they can make the line for the near vision portion of your glasses as high as you would like. It does not have to be just the small part at the bottom. Or you could consider multifocal Contact Lenses, they do not work for everybody, but they could help. If you had a surgery like Lasik or other surgeries, your options (if you are a candidate to start with) would be great near vision(but lose your distance vision), great distance vision(but lose your near vision) or possibly mediocre near and distance. As far as cataracts I would not worry too much, we all develop some form of a cataract once we reach a certain age but not all cataracts progress or cause loss of vision. Many people have a little bit of a cataract and never need surgery, or never know they even have the little bit because their doctor does not want them to worry. Best of Luck
loxie Guest
Posted
Thank you K51095, sounds sensible advice. It's just such a chore to keep removing and replacing glasses or changing them, or in fact bobbing my head up and down to get the right part of the varifocal lens to suit the need. Thanks for the comments re the cataracts too, a local guy who retails glasses for a specific lab said much the same thing - he said he gets many people coming to him in panic being told they have cataracts but often as you've mentioned, they're sometimes just a minor issue and dont progress to the need for surgery. I was a bit bewildered by the advertising for all these different (new) forms of laser surgery but I guess probably not for me. I might just stick with reading glasses for near vision but get a pair with just a half lens so that I can peer over the top for distance without having to keep putting them on and off.
jimluck loxie
Posted
You could get a reading contact lens for just your non-dominant eye. That works for some people. Try putting your reading glasses in front of just the non-dominant eye and see how well you can read with both eyes open, one corrected for reading and one not. Then look up and try distance viewing with that one reading lens still in place. That's not a perfect test, because the contact lens is going to work better but it might give you an idea whether this suggestion is worth pursuing.
Another option would be bifocals, where the upper part has no correction. I would prefer that to the peer-over reading glasses.
A third option is multi-focal contact lenses in both eyes.