In this blog post, we’ll be talking about a surgical option that has the potential to leave your glasses-free and could be the new Lasik killer.
Now, what is Lasik?
Well, unless you’ve been living under a huge rock over the last 10, 20 years, then you probably will know that Lasik is a laser refractive technology and technique used to be able to kind of scope the front of the eye, the cornea and leave people essentially free from using glasses.
The problem is for anybody who has ever explored having a laser correction done using a procedure such as Lasik is that it’s not always perfect and if you are somebody who needs glasses for distance and reading, then one of the things you may not realize up until you went and had your appointment is that laser correction only deals with your far sight.
Now, over the years, traditionally this has been a problem that has had many patients that have come across heading to a clinic, having the consultations done and what have you, and only to then be disappointed and turning back and feeling kind of totally defeated because the idea of having Lasik done or laser correction done is be totally glasses free.
So the idea of having to wear glasses to read a newspaper, for example, after having that procedure and spending all that money just seems to defeat the object for so many people and more recent development and innovation by these laser companies is a technique called a lens replacement, depending on where you are in the world is probably call something else but this lens replacement procedure is ideally there to solve the problem, but the question is, does it work and does it solve that problem for everybody?
Well, the funny thing is that it’s not that clear because I haven’t seen many patients who’ve had this procedure done and have come back to report a successful outcome or have got many glowing results to tell me about, that doesn’t mean that the procedure doesn’t work. However, what I can do is explain to you what this procedure involves, so that you can come to your conclusion about whether you think this procedure makes sense for you.
Now, lens replacement surgery, is a glorified cataract operation and that’s probably a good thing because a cataract operation is one of the most successful operations that you can have certainly as far as your eye is concerned. It’s a technique that has been used greatly over many years and it works very well.
The difference between a cataract operation, standard cataract operation and lens replacement surgery is the lens that’s put into your eye. So just as a quick run down, if you don’t know what a cataract operation involves, this is a procedure that involves the crystalline lens in your eye being kind of chopped up and the content within the crystalline lens is removed because that’s where a cataract will usually form and it gets cloudy, so the content within then is removed and will leave the outer shell, which is called the capsule in place and then within the capsule is in place, an artificial lens.
Now, why do we need a lens at all to be put back into the capsule?
Well, the simple answer is because the crystalline lens has huge optical power and if you remove it and fail to replace it with something equivalent, then you are going to be left with your patient requiring thick glasses.
Now in a cataract operation when a lens is implanted into the capsule, this is usually a single vision lens. However, it still requires you to need reading glasses for close up, like reading a newspaper after you have a cataract operation done. Well, the difference here is with lens replacement surgery, the lenses implanted is a multi-focal lens, so aims to improve your distance of vision as well as your close-up near vision as well and if all goes well, the idea is that you are then as happy as Larry and you can manage without any glasses whatsoever and of course, that is the ideal kind of dream situation for most people who go into having a cataract operation or indeed having surgery like Lasik.
Now, of course, when people turn up to laser correction surgeries, hoping to have this Lasik procedure done and being totally glasses-free, naturally people will be disappointed to learn that they will need to use reading glasses post-surgery. So this is a procedure that many clinics in recent years have been offering to people to be able to entice them to go ahead with some kind of procedure and potentially this is a procedure that will be able to solve the problem of distance and reading vision without the need for glasses altogether.
My anxieties and concern about this procedure is the fact that in many other areas of optics, whether that’s dealing with multi-focal glasses or multi-focal contact lenses, we know that these things can often be very complex and often, they may not be got right the very first time.
So my concern would be how accurate and how to know what percentage of people have this procedure done and come out with no problems and, the optics of the lenses are perfect the first time around, because clearly at the end of the day, having a procedure like this is fairly permanent you don’t want to be going back into have the procedure again to fish your lens out and replace it or anything like that.
I can’t speak to the results that people are getting because we just aren’t seeing any of these people coming into our practices. I mean, that could well mean that they’re all, really satisfied, really happy and never come back for eye tests but, we just don’t know if you’ve had this procedure done, let me know in the comments section below, how did you find it? Didn’t work out great for you? I genuinely would be interested to know.
So my final kind of thoughts and conclusion on whether lens replacement surgery is going to be the kind of Lasik killer, going forward is basically that, it might well be because the reality is that Lasik is now a very very good procedure, very precise, particularly if you having a blameless technique done using the femtosecond laser, then this means that no physical blades used on your eye while you’re having Lasik done is all done with this super-fast laser, all of the kind of cutting or the flap creation and also or the kind of sculpting of the cornea and that yields a very good healing, very good clarity without some of the associated problems that conventionally we’ve had in the past with laser procedures. So Lasik does work very well in the right hands and the right clinic.
However, I would advise if you’re thinking about having a procedure like this done, you want to have it done, perhaps in your 30’s, so at least you’re going to have a decade or so of not needing to worry about needing reading glasses. If you are somebody in your 40’s, 45 and upwards, then it’s certainly worth thinking about lens replacement as a viable option and way to be able to remain or be glasses-free going forward.
I would probably caution that people do need to kind of do a bit of research into this or significant my research and particularly to get testimonials and kind of success results look into, the kind of likelihood of visual artefacts and things that might be created by that multi-focal lens, ask the blunt questions and kind of see what you unveil really and make sure that you then feel comfortable and satisfied with the results that you’ve been told before you decide to go ahead.
Obviously, well it makes sense to use a reputable clinic that way, you’re sure, you’re probably going to get the kind of best surgeons and best support going forward.
I think also, I think in the future we might see lens replacement trickling into more of the mainstream kind of therapy and mainstream way of correcting cataract operations. So whereas currently, most lenses said our single vision, when this technology gets better, then it may be that more people have multi-focal lenses put in after cataract operations rather than the single vision lenses that only create the distance inside their vision.
So I think it’s certainly going to be one to watch and I think and I suspect that lens replacement is going to become a lot more mainstream going forward for people who have cataract operations. One of the issues right now is that if you’re in a place like the United Kingdom where I’m based, most people are used to getting their cataract operations done free of charge under the National Health Service, a multi-focal lens replacement procedure would not be covered and it’s something that you’d have to go private for.
Nevertheless, I think this is a very interesting procedure, definitely worth watching out for this and looking into a bit more if you’ve never heard of it before and ask the right questions and I want to know if you are somebody who has had this procedure done, let me know in the comment section below. It’s really kind of rare to find these individuals but if you are somebody or you know somebody, let us know what your thoughts are, what your experiences are?
Thank you for reading and until the next one, take care.
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== My recommended videos ==
What is a cataract https://youtu.be/VMPAUX5EJUk
Avoiding cataracts https://youtu.be/EK6T6d8AtIY
