Monovision

Monovision is by far the most common method of treating people who need both distance and near vision correction or for those who just need glasses/contact lenses for reading. Monovision is an extremely common method used by contact lens wearers and approximately 90% of people adapt to it without any problems.

Monovision simply refers to vision correction whereby one of your eyes (dominant eye) is corrected for distance vision and the other eye (non dominant eye) is corrected for near vision.

The 2 situations where Monovision is used:

• Perfect Distance vision but need reading spectacles: as you reach your mid 40’s. This situation occurs as the lens in your eye naturally loses if focussing power. In this situation your optician will first assess which is your dominant and non dominant eye. A contact lens of the power you require for reading will then be used in your non dominant eye. No contact lens is used in your other eye assuming your distance vision is still perfect. It is important to understand that your eye with the near vision contact lens in will be blurred for distance vision and the eye without the contact lens will be blurred for near vision. However with both eyes open together, you should be able to see clearly for both distance and near vision as your brain naturally switches from one eye to the other depending on the task you are doing.

• People who require both distance and near vision correction: Such people will need either 2 separate pairs of glasses for distance and near vision or need varifocals or bifocals. Monovision works for these people in a similar way to what has been explained above only that the dominant eye has a contact lens to correct for distance vision and the non dominant eye has a contact lens for near vision.

The priciple of monovision can also be used in laser eye surgery with either Lasik or Lasek. If you are currently wearing monovision contact lenses then you are already a candidate for monovision laser eye surgery. If you are not, then your surgeon will insist that you have a monovision contact lens trial to check that you can adapt to it without any problems.

How monovision laser eye surgery works:

• If you have perfect distance vision but needs spectacles for reading: Such people will only have their non dominant eye lasered and the surgeon will actually reshape your cornea to make you short sighted in that eye. Making you eye short sighted will mean that your eye will be focused for near vision tasks.

• If you requires both distance and near vision correction: This refers to people who wear varifocals, bifocals, have separate distance and near vision glasses or who currently wear both distance and near monovision contact lenses.  The aim of the surgery is to reshape your cornea so that one eye has perfect distance vision (dominant eye) and the other is left short-sighted (non dominant eye) for near vision.

Monovision is extremely successful at treating both distance and near vision and the aim is to leave you completely free from contact lenses/spectacles after surgery.

If there is still anything you are uncertain of why not ask a question in our laser eye surgery forum.