Archive for May, 2007

If you wear glasses or contacts then you have probably wondered what it would be like to see clearly on your own. You have probably also heard of Lasik surgery. Angie Henry is checking in for surgery. Surgery that will rid her of the glasses she has been wearing since the fourth grade. Henry takes the prescribed Valium and waits for her nerves to settle.

Angie’s first led back to a prep room. Once her eye area is disinfected, Henry enters the operating room to meet Dr. William Wiley.

Dr. William Wiley asks Angie if she can see the wall clock without her glass and without squinting; her reply is ‘No’.

With Henry in position, Dr. Wiley pops in a couple numbing drops and gets to work on her right eye. After the flap is cut in Angie’s other eye as well, Dr. Wiley begins correcting her sight.

The prescription is mapped out with extreme precision days before surgery with a computer and then transferred directly into the interlace machine. The laser is done in 30 seconds.

The procedure is repeated on Angie’s other eye. After a total of about 15 minutes, Angie is sitting up and checking out that wall clock once again.

Dr. William Wiley asked Angie to read the clock again, her reply this time, ‘Yes, it is 6:35′.

“I didn’t feel anything. I could just hear it! It was kind of moving around and it was over! It was not bad at all.”

After a few last minute instructions, Angie and her husband go home.

Dr. Wiley says the average patient pays between 1 and 2 thousand dollars per eye. And almost anyone can have it done as long as you have a stable prescription and a corneas that are thick enough to withstand the laser.

“Once you get Lasik, your sight is set for life.”

Dr. Wiley says there is a five-percent chance that some patients may need touch up surgery if they don’t heal as they’d hoped. With age, Lasik patients may eventually need reading glasses.

Source: 13ABC

Popularity: 8% [?]

More and more baby boomers are having LASIK surgery into their 50s, and 60s. For the first time, a large study looked at the safety and effectiveness of LASIK after age 40.

According to the study in the Journal of Ophthalmology, people are most likely never too old for some form of LASIK, as long as they have realistic expectations.

The study looked at people ages 40 to 70 who had some type of LASIK surgery done, and the vast majority did great.

“It all has to do with the changes in vision that take place as we get older,” CBS4’s Dr. Dave Hnida said. “We need reading glasses and our corneas are different. Our eyes don’t focus as well and we lose night vision.”

The study’s advice is for older people to be realistic. LASIK may not get older folks back to 20/20. About 80 percent of people over age 40 do have a good result, which is slightly less than someone younger, but just slightly.

“You may want to try monovision LASIK,” Hnida said. “Correct one eye for distance and one eye for close up. No bifocals or reading glasses.”

Hnida said before people try monovision, they may want to try special contacts that correct each eye differently to make sure they can adjust to it.

Source: CBS 4 Denver 

Popularity: 5% [?]