At some point during their lives, everyone starts to experience changes in their eye’s ability to focus on near objects. Most people notice this beginning in their 40s, though the exact timing is different for each person. The process is known as presbyopia, and it’s a completely normal and unavoidable part of aging, but many people find that it creates problems in their daily lives.
Even those who have never needed corrective lenses during their younger years may consider having a vision correction procedure at this point. Can LASIK help with presbyopia? What are the options?
What causes age-related vision changes?
The changes in the eye as a result of aging are actually a result of stiffening of the lens. Located just behind the pupil, this is a clear structure that acts to focus light onto the retina (the light-sensing tissue at the back of the eye). In order to focus on closer objects, small muscles in the eye must change the shape of the lens. As a person ages, proteins in the lens undergo changes that make it stiffer, so it’s harder for the lens to change shape. This is why it gets harder to focus on close objects, even though your distance vision doesn’t change.
LASIK acts on the cornea (the clear covering in front of the pupil), not on the lens. So can LASIK help with presbyopia?
Monovision LASIK may help
Although LASIK can’t directly address the lens itself, it can be helpful if used in the right way. Simply adjusting both eyes to accommodate near vision would not be a great idea, because then you would become unable to see at a distance. You would just be trading one problem for another. However, there’s a technique called monovision LASIK that some patients find helpful. In this procedure, one eye is left untreated, while the other eye is corrected for near vision.
Over time, the brain usually adapts to monovision. Patients experience a seamless transition from close to distance vision, as the brain simply switches which input it is paying attention to. The majority of patients find that, after a period of adaptation, they don’t even notice the switch anymore. However, there is a small minority of people whose brains don’t adapt, and they find monovision somewhat disorienting. If you want to “test drive” it before you have monovision LASIK, we can prescribe you one contact lens. You wear the contact in one eye while leaving the other uncorrected, to experience monovision for a few weeks and see whether you feel it would be a good option for you.
There are other options
If you’re seeking relief from age-related vision changes, monovision LASIK isn’t your only option. You can choose corrective lenses (glasses or contacts), or you may be a candidate for refractive lens exchange (in which your eye’s natural lenses are replaced with artificial ones, similar to cataract surgery) with an intraocular lens that can change shape in order to change focal distance. (Not every intraocular lens can do this; we offer several different types of lenses here in our office that do.)
If you’d like to discuss your various options and get professional advice on the advantages and disadvantages of each one, we invite you to make an appointment here at North County Laser Eye Associates. One of our doctors would be happy to examine you and spend some time answering all of your questions about this topic. We also offer several different vision correction procedures. To schedule your appointment, please contact our office.
