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Implantable contact lenses to correct for reading
No one bothered to tell me that when I hit 40, my close up reading vision would go kaput. There’s a nifty little byproduct of the aging process where the lens begins to loose some of its flexibility- just like many other joints in your body. This leads to someone having a harder time focusing on things that are close up. The condition is called Presbyopia and if you’re over 40, there’s a good chance you’ve got it or soon will.
Up until now, the only real cure for presbyopia was to get reading glasses. Some people have luck wearing one contact lens for close-up and one lens for distance; others go for the reading glasses- whether the cheap drugstore variety or a customized bifocal or even a tri-focal. If you don’t want any of those options, you were out of luck.
Until now.
An Ophthalmologist in Minneapolis is participating in an FDA trial for small, implantable lenses that will correct for the close up vision. The procedure is already available in Europe with good results and could be available here in as little as two years. It is a surgical procedure, so there are risks involved since it’s implanted in the eye; patients will need to weigh the risk of surgery vs. the convenience of dumping their readers for good. I think that’s a fair trade.
