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Age-related farsightedness, also called presbyopia, is an inevitable side-effect of aging. It results from the stiffening of the natural lens in your eye as you get older.
Presbyopia is the reason why you need reading glasses in your forties. As your lens loses flexibility, it loses the ability to focus on objects close to your eyes.
It becomes stuck in a farsighted position. Therefore you need reading glasses to compensate for your inability to focus up-close.
This stiffening of your natural lens is an unavoidable aspect of getting older. But that does not mean you need to wear reading glasses for the rest of your life.
Refractive lens exchange can give you clear eyesight again after presbyopia has affected your lenses.
The ophthalmologists at Crews LASIK and Cataract Center have the skill and experience to give you clear eyesight again using refractive lens exchange. We routinely use the PanOptix trifocal, Vivity, and Synergy IOLs to give patients full vision back.
Refractive lens exchange is a procedure that gets rid of presbyopia. It removes your stiffening natural lens and replaces it with an intraocular lens or IOL.
The IOLs used in refractive lens exchange can give you a full range of vision with little need for glasses. These IOLs allow you to go from reading to looking across a field without any blurred vision.
During refractive lens exchange, your surgeon removes your natural lens. They do this by first making an incision in your cornea, the outer layer of your eye.
This incision allows them to access your natural lens, which sits behind your cornea. When they can reach the lens, they use an ultrasound device to break it into smaller pieces.
After it gets broken down, they can remove your lens with gentle suction. Removing the lens gives them space to replace it with an IOL.
They insert the IOL you’ve chosen into the cavity left by your natural lens. Then they close the corneal incision and send you home to recover.
The IOL should give you better vision within a few days. It could even give you clear eyesight within a couple of hours after your procedure.
Full recovery from refractive lens exchange is less than two months. But you should be able to get back to your everyday routine within two or three days.
Intraocular lenses or IOLs are artificial lenses used in refractive lens exchange. Before your procedure, your eye doctor will help you choose the best IOL for you.
When you develop presbyopia, your natural lens can no longer elongate to focus on objects near your eyes. IOLs replace your natural lens to do the job it can no longer perform.
The right IOL, like the PanOptix trifocal, Vivity, or Synergy, can give you good up-close sight as well as crisp intermediate and far vision. They allow you to read, knit, or look at your cell phone without glasses.
Then with the same lens, you can also play golf or go to a concert without needing glasses. Premium IOLs like these give you true visual freedom.
There is a chance you may need glasses to read food or prescription labels. But those are rare cases and should be the only times when you need visual aids.
The PanOptix trifocal IOL is the first trifocal IOL available in the country. Most premium multifocal IOLs are bifocal, meaning they have two refractive rings.
These rings are set into the lens and focus light at near and far distances. The PanOptix trifocal has a third ring in the lens, giving it a more extensive range of vision.
Unlike other multifocal IOLs, the PanOptix trifocal also gives you focused intermediate vision. The extra refractive ring in the lens is set between the near and far rings.
This third refractive ring makes the outer focal point longer than other IOLs and eliminates blurriness between focal points. These gaps in your vision between distances are the most common side effect of multifocal IOLs.
Having three focal points means it can give you continuous vision from far away to up-close. All while producing no gaps between the distances.
The PanOptix trifocal gives you distance, intermediate, and up-close vision. It eliminates your need for glasses no matter what you’re doing.
If you are getting refractive lens exchange to end presbyopia, the PanOptix trifocal can give you more visual freedom than you may have ever had.
The Vivity IOL is a non-diffractive extended depth of focus (EDOF) IOL. It is the first and only IOL of its kind.
Rather than have focal points etched into the lens as in multifocal IOLs, the Vivity IOL has extended focal ranges. It gives you a field of clear vision with elongated focal points.
This elongation is different than standard focal points, which are set to one distance. Set focal points like this also split the light entering your eye.
Splitting light can cause small gaps in your vision. The Vivity IOL uses something called X-Wave technology to avoid these gaps.
It bends and shifts the light entering your eye to eliminate the gaps created by other IOLs. This shifting of light gives you disturbance-free vision as you transition between distances.
You can go from seeing clearly far away to looking at something directly in front of you, with no gaps in your eyesight. The Vivity IOL is another IOL that can give you true visual freedom.
You may need reading glasses for the finest of text. Besides that, you can see everything around you, near, far, and between.
The Synergy IOL is one of the most powerful IOLs available. It provides a continuous range of vision without any breaks in your eyesight.
The Synergy IOL uses extended focal ranges to give you uninterrupted vision. It has the most comprehensive field of continuous vision of any IOL and the sharpest up-close sight.
Synergy lets you transition between refractive distances without any aberrations or blurriness. It also has the most superior contrast of any IOLs. This contrast allows it to perform better than other IOLs in low-light conditions.
Would you like to avoid reading glasses for the rest of your life? Schedule a consultation at Crews LASIK and Cataract Center in Vancouver, WA, to discuss refractive lens exchange.