PRESBYOPIA - treating blurred near vision in Birmingham
Presbyopia: "I need varifocal or reading glasses"
You have presbyopia if you need glasses to see your phone & you need varifocal glasses or you wear reading glasses on a chain around your neck or on your head. You may have lots of reading glasses all over the place, but not with you when you need them. Do you lose & break reading glasses as fast as you buy them?
Laser eye surgery can reverse & pause presbyopia. Lens replacement surgery can reverse & stop it.
Example of a glasses prescription for someone with presbyopia:
The ADD blocks have positive numbers, e.g. +1.50. The higher the number, the higher the degree of presbyopia.
The Sphere (SPH) indicates hyperopia (a positive number) or myopia (a negative number). The Cylinder (CYL) indicates the astigmatism.
"Everything from start to finish has been perfect. I couldn't have hoped for better results or friendlier staff. I wish I had done it years ago!"
3 stages of lens deterioration:
Eyes differ but usually …
Stage 1: Your near vision gets worse & you need reading glasses.
Stage 2: Your distance vision gets deteriorates & you need glasses for driving & TV too.
Stage 3: A cataract develops & your vision is blurred for near and far even with glasses.
If you’re hyperopic (farsighted), you need glasses to read & to see in the distance (driving) when you’re younger.
If you’re myopic (short-sighted), you find that with contact lenses you can’t read & need reading glasses in addition to the lenses. And you can’t read with your glasses on so you take them off to read.
The lens inside your eyes becomes harder & less flexible & is no longer able to change shape & adjust from distance to near focus for reading, putting on makeup, seeing a phone or putting a screwdriver into a screw especially when the light is poor.
This usually starts in your mid to late 40’s & you will start wearing glasses for the first time or you may need reading glasses over your contact lenses to read & do everything nearby.
Eventually your lens will become so hard it becomes cloudy, forming a cataract. Then even wearing glasses doesn’t give you clear vision.
It doesn’t matter if you have emmetropia (perfect vision naturally or from LASIK or other laser eye surgery), hyperopia (also known as hypermetropia or being farsighted) or myopia (short-sighted), you’ll develop presbyopia when you’re older & need vision correction. Glasses, contact lenses & laser eye surgery may correct the focus of your eyes when you’re young. But when presbyopia lens changes develop you will need those annoying reading or varifocal glasses. And you will need progressively thicker reading glasses as you age. Presbyopia happens to everyone unfortunately & people say it makes them feel old.
Lens replacement or lens exchange surgery is a vision correction treatment which permanently stops your lens from ageing and improves both distance & near vision. And because you have stopped the ageing of the lens, you won’t form cataracts or need cataract surgery in future.
Monovision blended laser vision surgery is another good treatment which can turn back the clock & enable you to see near & distant objects without glasses. Blended monovision with the laser is not a permanent solution.
Your vision can be rejuvenated by refractive lens exchange or laser eye surgery in our Birmingham eye clinic by Mark Wevill, who has 20 years of vision correction surgery experience. He’s an eye surgeon who has done thousands of laser blended vision, LASIK monovision & multifocal intraocular lenses procedures & many people from Birmingham & the West Midlands are now able to drive a car & read a book without glasses again. Read more about the treatment options.
What can we do to correct your presbyopia?
The best vision correction procedure is different for each of us & so are the prices. When you come for a consultation in Birmingham we’ll advise you about the cost & find an affordable way to enjoy getting those reading glasses off your head.
