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Laser eye surgery for reading
As we get older there is a natural deterioration of our reading vision and the name given to this is presbyopia. Presbyopia typically occurs between the ages of 40 - 45 years old and is the same for both men and women.
The cause of presbyopia is the natural loss of the focussing power of the lens within our eyes. The lens is located just behind the pupil of the eye and its function is to focus the light entering our eye so that it falls onto our retina. With increasing age the lens loses its elasticity and the muscles which control it lose their effectiveness. As the lens in your eye weakens, the power in your reading glasses needs to be increased. This is why once you start wearing reading glasses every time you back to the opticians you will normally need stronger glasses
There are a few different ways in which presbyopia may affect your vision depending on whether you are long sighted, short sighted or have had perfect eyesight right up until your 40’s.
How presbyopia affects your vision:
- Perfect eyesight all your life: If you have had perfect eyesight all your life this means that your eyes naturally focus light exactly onto the retina and hence you see perfectly. However as you approach your mid 40’s, the lens in your eye loses its focussing power and you will start holding reading material further away to try and read it. The reason your distance vision is not affected is because to see things clearly far away the lens in your eye hardly needs to exert any focusing power at all. However for close vision tasks you require your lens to focus but this becomes more difficult as the lens ages. The closer something is to you the more focussing power is needed and this explains why people hold things further away. E.g. by holding things further away, the lens in your eye doesn’t have to focus as much. Such people will end up needing reading spectacle for the rest of their life but may continue to have perfect distance vision.
- Short sighted: Generally speaking when you are short sighted you will always be able to see things up close when you take your distance vision glasses off. How close you need to hold things depends on how short sighted you are. If you are very short sighted e.g. -10.00 you would need to hold a book 10 cm away from your eyes to read it. If you are -2.50 then you would be able to read something at 40 cm which is about the perfect reading distance. However as you get older and the lens in your eye loses its focusing power, you will find you will need to take your distance vision spectacles off more and more when you need to read something. This initially may only be when you are reading very fine print or when the lighting is not good, but as presbyopia fully progresses you will have to take your glasses off every time you need to see/read anything up close. When it gets to this level, most people opt for varifocals in their glasses which enables distance, intermediate and near vision all to be clear simultaneously. Those people wearing contact lenses will need to start wearing multifocal contact lenses or more commonly monovision contact lens correction.
- Long sighted: Most people who are long sighted will typically start needing spectacles for near vision only but as they get older their distance vision will also start to deteriorate. This does depend however on how long sighted you are. However as you reach your mid 40’s and start developing presbyopia you will eventually require extra reading power in your glasses which will be in the form of a varifocal. If you are a contact lens wearer you will need either multifocal contact lenses or Monovision contact lens correction.
In order to treat presbyopia there are a number of laser eye surgery techniques available and these are explained below:
The 5 main ways laser eye surgery can correct presbyopia:
- Perfect Distance vision with reading spectacles as required: This effectively means that the surgeon will correct your distance vision so you do not need to wear spectacles or contact lenses to walk around in, drive etc but you will still require reading spectacles for close tasks.
- Monovision laser eye surgery: This simply means that laser eye surgery corrects one eye to see perfectly in the distance and the other eye to see perfectly for near vision.
- CK Surgery: This is a non-invasive technique which uses radio waves (instead of laser) to correct your near vision.
- Multifocal Lasik: This effectively uses a laser to reshape the surface of your eye to work in a similar way to a varifocal spectacle lens. This is also known as laser blended vision.
- Kamra Vision: Kamra vision uses a tiny implant within your cornea to significantly improve your reading vision.
Got a question about laser eye surgery? Ask it in our laser eye surgery forum.
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