It's irreversible. Age brings with it a deterioration in eyesight. If your distance vision is still good, but your near vision is becoming increasingly blurry, it's time to think about doing something about your reading difficulties. The best solution for you will probably be a ReplaceLens treatment on one eye.
Here at FYEO, we also call this a Readon ReplaceLens treatment. The clue’s in the name: this treatment enables you to ‘read on’ and get rid of your reading glasses.
In most cases, laser eye surgery will be a less suitable solution because it changes the shape of the cornea and the eye lens continues to age. Replacing the eye lens stops the refractive power changing. So, this is a permanent solution for the treated eye.
The shape of your eye lens changes constantly to allow you to see clearly. It becomes flatter for distance vision and more convex for near vision. We call this ‘accommodation’.
Accommodative ability
Your accommodative ability decreases with age. The natural eye lens changes and becomes stiffer, which makes it more and more difficult for it to curve. In this situation, you will need reading glasses to be able to see clearly up close. In other words: you are now presbyopic.
The Readon ReplaceLens treatment - which will enable you to read something close up again - will be appropriate if your distance vision is good but you are starting to have difficulty reading. A ReplaceLens is placed in one eye to enable you to see well close up again. After the Readon treatment, you will have clear near and distance vision in both eyes because you still have good distance vision in the untreated eye. The other eye will be treated in the future. The time frame for this treatment will depend on acclimatisation, visual tasks and the aging of the natural lens in the untreated eye.
Bear in mind that the acclimatisation period lasts an average of six to nine months. Your brain will need time to acclimatise to the new eye situation in the treated eye. Although you will be able to see straight away after the treatment, it will take a while before you can see everything clearly again or without shadows. If you are finding it difficult to acclimatise to the new situation, the best solution is often to have the other eye treated relatively quickly as well.
If you are only just starting to have difficulty reading, we can solve this problem by doing a ReplaceLens Multiple Vision (Select) treatment on one eye. This lens corrects your eyesight at several distances so that you won’t need your reading glasses anymore.
If both your distance and near vision need to be corrected, or if your reading ability has got significantly worse, a ReplaceLenses Multiple Vision treatment for both eyes will be the most appropriate solution for you.
Laser eye surgery might be the most well-known ocular procedure, but it’s not a permanent solution. This is because it is only able to correct one refractive strength: distance or near vision. It is corrected by changing the shape of the cornea. You’ve now reached the time of life when the ageing of your eye lens is already well under way. This has nothing to do with the cornea. Your near vision isn’t as good anymore and your distance vision is deteriorating too because your natural eye lens has started to become opaque - also known as a cataract.
Difficulty reading
If you choose to have your distance vision treated with laser eye surgery, you will still find it difficult to read. Although the Monovision procedure can buy you some time, your natural eye lens will continue to age. You will eventually start to have difficulty reading again. So, laser eye surgery won’t help you get rid of reading glasses for good.
The Readon ReplaceLens procedure will only solve your reading difficulties for a number of years. They will return at some point. That's not unusual because the natural ageing process of the eye lens in your other, untreated eye won’t stop.
Depending on the following factors, your other eye will need to be treated in the shorter or longer term:
An extensive preliminary examination: FREE and personal.
Book a preliminary examinationEvery treatment process starts with a free, no-obligation preliminary examination. It identifies exactly what’s happening with your eyes. Are they healthy or do you have an eye condition? What’s the length of your eye? How big is your pupil? What’s the actual refractive deviation?
Your eye health forms part of the preliminary examination, but your personal story is important too. How do you use your eyes? What expectations do you have? You and your eye specialist will decide which procedure is best for you together.
Every situation is different and requires personal and individual advice. Sometimes, a ReplaceLens procedure won’t be the most suitable option for you (yet). Laser eye surgery or an ExtraLens procedure may be better solutions in certain situations.
It may also be found that you already have a distance vision problem and that the advice will be for you to have both eyes treated immediately.
