Southwest Florida's Health and Wellness Magazine Health and Wellness Articles
The good news about a procedure that can solve multiple problems
Clear Lens Replacement, or CLR, represents a win-win solution for individuals over 50 who are considering refractive surgery to decrease their dependence on both distance and reading glasses. Usually around the age of 40, your eyes begin to have difficulty focusing on near objects. While jokingly dubbed “short arm syndrome”, this condition is actually called Presbyopia, and is a naturally occurring process that continues to progress into your 60s. Reading glasses, bifocals, and progressive lenses are generally prescribed, but the inconvenience of juggling multiple pairs of glasses often intensifies your desire to be free of them. That’s why people often ask their doctors for laser vision correction, or LASIK. They know that it successfully corrects your vision by changing the shape of the cornea and providing good distance vision. But it may come as a shock to you that LASIK may not be the best choice for you…that you may still have to wear reading glasses even after having LASIK. And as years go by, the natural lens in your eye will become cloudy, forming a cataract, which will need to be removed surgically to restore your vision again. But don’t despair, there’s another option.
To get the good vision you desire plus freedom from glasses dependency, consider Clear Lens Replacement. Unlike LASIK, CLR is a surgical vision correction procedure, intended to reduce or eliminate the need for glasses or contacts for people over 50.
With CLR, the highly skilled and experienced surgeons at The Eye Associates replace your natural crystalline lens in your eye with a new artificial intraocular lens implant (IOL). The procedure is much like having cataract surgery; however, in cataract surgery the removed lens, called a cataract, is clouded. In CLR, the removed lens is still clear. The IOL is a permanent replacement for your natural lens, and is designed to last the rest of your life. An added benefit is that your risk of having cataracts is completely eliminated. Because the eye’s natural lens has already been replaced with an IOL, you’ll never need cataract surgery!
The new FDA approved high tech lens implants (IOLs) are a great match for this procedure. In the past, single focus IOLs were only available to CLR patients. Single focus implants offered good distance vision, but still required glasses for reading, thereby minimizing the appeal of CLR for people whose main objective was to be glasses free. But now, the high tech lens implants enable The Eye Associates to offer patients the possibility of improving their vision to a level perhaps not experienced even before the surgery. The crystalens®, the ReSTOR® , Trulign Toric, TECNIS® Toric and the TECNIS® Multifocal are some of the most technologically advanced high tech lenses on the market today. They can help patients reduce their day to day dependency on glasses and contacts. People often feel like they’ve turned back the clock, seeing as well—or sometimes even better—than they did when they were younger. State-of-the-art ultrasound instruments are used to measure your eye for the correct lens power, taking your lifestyle and desired activities into consideration. These custom measurements are entered into sophisticated equipment to calculate a personalized treatment plan, designed for your unique visual requirements. For this reason, more and more informed individuals realize that they can avoid the visual consequences of presbyopia and a future of cataract surgery with a high tech lens implant, by requesting Clear Lens Replacement surgery.
