Laser Vision Correction and Reading Glasses

Laser vision correction means you'll be able to drive and see TV without your glasses. But if you are over 40 years old, what about your reading vision?

Patients with good distance vision invariably become gradually more dependent on reading glasses around their mid forties. However if you are myopic (near sighted), you can read well without glasses, indeed you'll probably find yourself taking them off.

I often hear people tell me, "You mean I will still need glasses after the laser treatment, but now for reading? So what's the point?"

It does of course depend on the individual. For a taxi driver who just wants to be able to drive without glasses this is not a problem. But for a bank clerk who spends his entire day reading papers, suddenly requiring reading glasses for the first time will not be a welcome result after his laser treatment.

The solution to this problem is called Monovision. In Monovision we deliberately undercorrect one eye, the non-dominant eye, leaving it slightly myopic (near sighted), usually about -1.0 to -1.5. In this situation one eye, the fully corrected one, sees well for distance, and the other undercorrected eye sees well for near/reading.

In my experience about 75% of patients adapt well to this slight imbalance between the two eyes and no longer require glasses for distance or reading or any other daily activity. Pre-operative testing and counseling can select the best cases.

Farsighted candidates can also be helped with this technique although in their case they require an overcorrection (excess laser treatment) on one eye to make that eye deliberately slightly near sighted. Satisfaction in this group of patients is somewhat more difficult, but as far sighted people don`t see well either for near or for far, just giving them good distance vision is tremendously satisfying.

By Andrew Fink