Question:
I am older (50) and have a problem with close up vision. I have
been wearing progressive eyeglasses for some time now. What
happens when you get LASIK? Is it better to get both eyes
corrected for distance and wear reading glasses when needed or is
it better to go mono vision, one eye close-up and one eye for
distance?
Here is the deal. I am not having LASIK. I am having cataract
surgery where they remove a clouded natural lens and replace it
with a lens implant. The replacement lens is custom fit to
correct nearsightedness. I won't need LASIK and the nice part is
insurance pays 100%. I got one eye done last year and now I am
having the other eye done next month.
Answer:
I had LASIK in December 1999 (soon after I was 50), and my surgeon
gave me monovision correction. I'm very happy with this. It's also
amusing sometimes - recently, a group of friends and I were at dinner
in a restaurant. When the waiter brought the menus, the other 5
people all reached for their reading glasses. One of them looked
around and asked "What's wrong with this picture? No glasses for you,
Rob?" She didn't know I got monovision correction when I had my
surgery.
I started wearing glasses at the age of 7 for myopia, and had been
wearing contact lenses for 21 years prior to my surgery. The surgeon
gave me a "reading" contact for one eye as a test. I was able to
accomodate to it by the time I left his office the first day. I
should note that I was myopic, -8 and -8.5. In effect, for myopia,
the reading eye in monovision is simply a less strong correction, that
is, he gave me a lens that would have given me 20/20 vision if the eye
had been -6 diopters. Since having the LASIK surgery, there's
sufficient overlap where the reading eye starts getting blurry and the
distance eye starts seeing clearly. I can read the tiniest print on
eye dropper bottles, and the Oxford English Dictionary compact edition
without the magnifying glass it comes with.
Some people can't get used to monovision correction. Normally, for
monovision correction, the distance correction (whether by lens
implant or LASIK) is given to the dominant eye. If the eye that
already has the implant is not your naturally dominant eye, you may
not be a good candidate for this. You should be able to have your
doctor give you an under-corrected eyeglass lens for the eye that
hasn't been operated on, to test whether you can get used to the
effect. Good luck!
