What are the pro’s and cons?
Friend had it, worked well for years, no more glasses.
But as you get older the results seem to wear off, more like your eye keeps aging.
I’m not sure if it’s something you can redo too many times?
Pros:
No more glasses.
No more sticking my finger in my eyes putting contacts in/out.
No more losing contacts.
No more buying contacts or the various sauces.
I can see the dashboard and beyond unaided.
Cons:
Was a bit pricey (about $3000 for both eyes in early 2000’s)
My extremely up-close vision is degraded, but I never needed to see anything in that sharp of detail that close to my face before anyway. Like eye-crossingly close, I used to be able to focus on all the little lines in my hand. Now I just get cross eyed.
Some advertise supervision of 10/20 ( bottom of the eye chart ) which I had many years ago.
It’s awesome! Maybe the best money I’ve ever spent. I heavily recommend it. Near perfect vision by the next day.
How well does it work for complex prescriptions? I’m currently wearing trifocal progressing lenses in my glasses. I tried using contacts that are supposed to be able to deal with that type of situation and couldn’t get used to them. (It requires having one lens dedicated to distance vision and the other to middle and closer distances, or something like that.)
It doesn’t, as far as I’m aware. Myopia is caused by a misshapen cornea, where the ‘infinite’ focus point for distant objects is in front of the retina. Astigmatism and hyperopia are also generally caused by misshapen corneas as well, and can be treated with laser surgery. However, your near vision issues are almost certainly symptoms of presbyopia, which is caused by a hardening of the lens and weakening of the focusing muscles in the eye that appear with age, and aren’t subject to surgical correction.
Successful laser surgery in your case would give you good distance vision, but most likely worsen your near vision; you would definitely need reading glasses.
I had it years ago. Best $3k I’ve ever spent.
As others have said, it doesn’t fix presbyopia, which is related to your eye’s inability to deform the lens. That generally only starts becoming a problem at age 45 or so. There is lens replacement surgery available, though, which I plan on getting when I start needing reading glasses.
I had to get one eye redone several months after the surgery since it regressed to perhaps 20/40, but since then (something like 10 years) it’s been fine.
I had Lasik in 2001. I always considered having to wear glasses a disability as my eyes didn’t work the way my maker intended them to.
It’s great for the reasons already mentioned. Also, I can falls asleep to the TV without worrying I’ll break an expensive pair of glasses. I can see my clock when I wake up in the morning. My vision isn’t hampered by gook on eyeglass lenses, etc…
Over the past year my vision has gone down a bit, mostly due to age (I’ll be 57 in October) but I just had an exam 2 weeks ago and tested 20/30. One of the other reasons for my vision deteriorating is a large floater in my left eye remaining from a torn retina I had in the winter of 2016. An eye surgeon said my insurance would cover a procedure to fix that called a virectomy.
Do you anymore information on this you can share? I can no longer get my eyes fixed for distance vision without then requiring reading glass, which I don’t want. The procedure you mentioned sounds intriguing.
Thanks!
I don’t know a huge amount; you can read a bit about it here.
The lenses were largely designed for cataract surgery, where the natural lens has to be replaced due to turning opaque. The latest generation of lenses, unlike earlier ones, support focusing over a wide range. The best one (as far as I can tell) is the Baush and Lomb Crystalens, which is accommodating; that is to say, it can change focus by changing shape, just like the natural lens. Others are “multifocus”, which achieves a wider natural focus range at the expense of light-gathering ability.
From what I’ve seen, it’s been slow for doctors to apply lens replacement to presbyopia, probably because it’s thought of as a “cosmetic” problem (unlike cataracts). But in my opinion, glasses are still a huge quality of life hit and I’d like to avoid them.
Cataract surgery costs around $3500 per eye, and Crystalens is an upgrade on top of that, so most likely the procedure would be around $10k for both eyes.
Great, thanks!