Presbyopia creates the need for reading glasses over the age of 45- it can feel like struggling against the tide, inevitably everyone will need reading glasses. A good number of people find this onset of fuzzy near vision a big aggravation and the necessity of carrying reading glasses just about everywhere even more so. It’s a sign of ageing and the desire to avoid it is substantial.
Frequently the method to help eliminate the need for reading glasses was less than ideal. Laser eye surgery by itself can only fix for one distance range and thus for patients over 45 years of age the choice has been to either correct both eyes for distance vision and wear reading glasses, or a procedure called monovision, where one eye is fixed for distance vision and the other eye for near vision.
The drawback to the monovision treatment is the fact that having one eye for distance vision and one for near vision will not provide for stereopsis, which is fine depth perception. Our visual pathway has developed especially to give us fine depth perception and the losing this is a significant sacrifice.
The monovision technique also allows us to read because of one eye being shortsighted, and the refraction this causes means a closer point of focus. Unfortunately, the issue with this is the requirement for reading glasses gets more necessary as you age, and typically within 10 years monovision will not be sufficient to allow fine reading and will need future enhancement. This is the cause of the widely thought false impression that laser eye surgery lasts only ten years. In truth, distance correction should really last for the remainder of your lifetime; it is primarily ability to read that tends to shift as time progresses.
To solve a lot of the problems of typical endeavours to obtain freedom from reading eyeglasses such as monovision, there is a revolutionary innovative technique called the Kamra Inlay. It’s tiny, at a diameter of only 3.8mm, black donut containing a middle 1.6 mm aperture that’s merely 5 microns thick. This is actually thinner than a single cell on the surface of the cornea. It is utilised together with a Blade-free or femtosecond LASIK operation and is placed in the base of the flap that is created at the end of the case in only the non-dominant eye.
The basic theory is that a shortened aperture to look through increases the range of focus, allowing a full range of vision from distance, intermediate, and all the way up to the littlest printed line for near. It’s a corresponding notion to the one noticed in photography where a shortened aperture boosts the depth of focus in a picture which means subjects seen both in the background and in the near are experienced with sharp relief.
The benefit of the procedure is several:
- You can keep up the two eyes seeing effectively for long distance and therefore sustain the critical enjoyment of depth perception that may be unfortunately sacrificed with monovision operations.
- As opposed to the isolated near sweet spot observed in monovision procedures, an individual with the Kamra inlay has the comprehensive range of vision from distance all the way to near with everything in the middle in sharp focus too.
- The improved focal depth that is achieved is adequate to cover you over your whole lifetime irrespective of the power of spectacles that might have been required at that age and therefore you could maintain freedom from reading glasses for life without needing to get anything else done.
- It offers great assurance to persons having the treatment that it is able to be completely reversed.
- Even individuals with a basic monofocal lens after a cataract extraction procedure would be able to read with a Kamra inlay in without all the pitfalls encountered with multi-focal intraocular lenses such as seeing halos around bright lights.
- Folks who have already had LASIK operations in the past can still have the Kamra inlay inserted as a secondary procedure when they start to need reading glasses.
- Folks who already have decent long distance vision and only require glasses for reading are the perfect candidates for the Kamra inlay, as contrary to monovision in the past, they now do not need to give up their distance vision quality to accomplish their objective of doing away with the reading lenses.
The great requirement from the forty somethings and beyond to obtain escape from reading glasses will allow for the thrilling step forward the Kamra inlay delivers to make a massive impact in the area of vision correction; the Kamra – a tiny revolution!
Dr. James Genge is a trusted and accomplished laser eye surgeon from Sydney Australia. Want to learn more about the Kamra inlay? Visit his website at Laser Eye Surgery Sydney.