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Why is my vision changing as I’m hitting my mid 40’s?
Presbyopia is an age related condition, which affects us all at around 45 years of age, the time when many of us start to struggle to read small print and find ourselves holding our phone further away to read the text. Presbyopia is the term used to describe the loss of the eye being able to alter its shape focusing from distant to near objects.
People who have never worn glasses now require reading glasses or others that already need glasses find that they now need 2 or 3 pairs to focus at different distances. This is because we typically have 3 separate focal distances: near vision (around 30-50cm), intermediate vision (50cm to a few meters) and distance vision (from a few meters to infinity).
Can presbyopia be corrected?
Yes, presbyopia can be managed by monovision (wearing contact lenses) or corrected by Laser Blended Vision.
Monovision
Monovision uses contact lenses to focus the lens of one eye into the distance and your other lens in the other eye for near vision, such as reading.
With monovision the eye that sees well for distance vision will have slightly blurred vision up close, and the eye that sees well up close will be slightly blurred when looking in the distance. When both eyes are open, typically the vision seems clear at both distances and this works well for around 60% of people.
For other people the difference in the focal length is difficult to adjust too. The disparity between the eyes is too high for the brain to fuse the image and instead the brain needs to apply suppression of the blurred eye in order to perceive a clear visual field.
As our eyes continue to age you will continue to need to update your contact lens prescription.
Laser Blended Vision
Laser Blended Vision from Zeiss is a more sophisticated treatment and an improvement on monovision.
It is used to treat presbyopia (ageing eyes), can help people that simply need reading glasses, and others who have started to need bifocal or varifocal spectacle correction due to the ageing changes in their eyes.
Laser Blended Vision can also be used for people who are short-sighted (myopia) or long-sighted (hyperopia) and who also may have astigmatism.
Laser Blended Vision adjusts each eye slightly differently. The dominant eye is adjusted to see full distance vision and some intermediate range vision and the non-dominant eye is adjusted to focus at intermediate range and near vision. Because of the similarity in the visual performance of each eye seeing in the intermediate range, the brain is able to blend the images between the eyes creating a binocular visual field much better than standard monovision. The eyes work together to allow good vision at near, intermediate and distance and the brain combines both images to give much greater depth of vision and all-round improvement in visual acuity that means most people can throw away their glasses.
As Laser blended Vision is milder than monovision in contact lenses, more people are able to adapt to it than to monovision, with approximately 98% of people with presbyopia being suitable candidates.
Laser Blended Vision has been performed for over ten years. The results are great with over 99% of short-sighted patients and 94% of long-sighted patients who have received laser blended vision are able to read standard newsprint.
Most people who choose Laser Blended Vision do so to be free from wearing reading glasses and this is successful for the majority of day-to-day tasks. However, lifestyles and pre existing vision impacts on whether you may still need one set of glasses for a certain activity to balance your eyes and give maximum binocular acuity for specific tasks e.g. in dim lighting such as driving at night or for reading very small print. Approximately 1 in 20 people who have had Laser Blended Vision my make up a pair of glasses for night driving long distances or reading at night.
The effects of Laser Blended Vision tend to last 10-20 years and can be further adjusted with an enhancement as the eyes age.
At Bowen Eye Clinic, Dr Reece Hall will assess your vision for suitability for Laser Blended Vision and discuss your lifestyle preferences with you in order to tailor your treatment to meet your individual visual requirements.