| |
|
|
> In The News. > *Procedure allows you to throw away glasses
*Procedure allows you to throw away glasses
Before Ann Ligums, 56, could check on her handicapped son in the middle of the night, she had to fumble around for her eyeglasses. The extra chore became tiresome enough for her to explore corrective eye surgery. "I needed the glasses for everything - both nearsightedness and farsightedness," she said.
Ligums went to the New England Eye Center (NEEC) in Boston, where she discovered her best option. Crystalens is marketed by Bausch & Lomb Surgical as "the first and only FDA-approved accommodating intraocular lens."
"Other lenses were not going to get rid of the spots in the nighttime," she said. A year after having the lenses implanted, her vision is "quite incredible," Ligums said. "After the patch came off the first eye, the change was immediate, like something switched. It was like having someone give me a new eye."
Crystalens is implanted through a medical procedure that allows most patients to be independent of glasses. First introduced to the European market, Crystalens was approved for sale in the United States by the FDA in 2003. More than 100,000 have been implanted worldwide.
Good candidates for Crystalens have such symptoms as seeing a yellowish tinge when viewing colors, sensitivity to light, double vision in one eye, trouble seeing at night, blurry vision or needing extra light to read.
"A candidate is someone who typically has a cataract, although people don't have to have cataracts to get the Crystalens," said Dr. Helen K. Wu of the New England Medical Center. Wu is a certified corneal specialist who has conducted over 300 Crystalens surgeries. "Normally, they are in their 50s and up and want to be less dependent on their reading glasses," she said.
After standard cataract surgery where monofocal lenses are implanted and both eyes are corrected for distance, patients normally need glasses for reading or computer use. However, if a person wants to be less dependent on reading glasses and have better long-range vision without glasses, Crystalens is a better option, Wu said.
"It's very good for distance and intermediate and functional near vision," Wu said. While some might need reading glasses to see in dim light or read fine print, most can read a newspaper or decipher cell phone or beeper messages without glasses.
She said Crystalens offers the same quality of night vision as monofocal lenses and doesn't cause halo and glare and other night driving problems.
That was a primary concern for Linda Looft, 61, of Leicester. Her position as assistant vice president for government and community relations at WPI in Worcester requires lots of driving, travel and reading.
Unlike most Crystalens patients, Looft only had the lens implanted in one eye. "I had a very fast growing cataract that happened almost immediately," she said. "I almost went blind in that eye." Her first consultation was held in February 2007; she had the surgery in June. "They said I should delay the surgery until after I had gone (on a scheduled trip) to Namibia in Africa because they didn't want me wearing the Crystalens in a dry, dirty environment."
That kind of supportive concern was a pattern followed throughout her experience at NEEC. "They were very clear and direct about the surgery and the process, procedure, expectations and the work I'd have to put into it," Looft said. "Most surgeries have some anxiety but I didn't feel anxious at all. It was painless in almost every regard."
Things went so well that Looft and her husband spent the afternoon of the surgery at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. The following day, the patch was removed. "The impact to see colors and objects at a distance and up close was almost immediate," she said. "The first comment I made was, 'Oh, my God. I had forgotten how vibrant colors were and how clear things can be.' I had an immediate awareness of my vision returning to normal that was miraculous."
Looft still had to build her eye strength, especially for reading. "There was discomfort, but nothing that difficult to manage," she said. "The biggest issue for me was to follow the regiment to not get water in the eye and to wear the patch at night so I wouldn't accidentally hit the eye."
She forced herself to read without glasses during the workday, much of which involved heavy computer use and reading of documents. She found herself only needing glasses in low light conditions, to read very fine print and driving at night. It took her six months to regain full function of the eye. "Right now I'm looking at 9-point font and I can read every word clearly," Looft said.
It's also made her more confident in her administrative role. "This was more than a lifestyle decision," Looft said. "It's important to have a professional look for work. It goes beyond a vanity level. It's about not having to worry about where my glasses are. I travel a fair amount and don't want to have to travel with two or three pairs of glasses."
The most dramatic change is when she drives at night. "Not being frightened and regaining confidence in driving at night was dramatic," Looft said. More than a year after the surgery, she doesn't even think about the operation and rarely needs glasses.
Crystalens surgery costs approximately $4,500 per eye. The cost of the operation includes 12 months of follow-up visits. Since insurance companies define Crystalens as premium lenses (as opposed to the covered monocular lenses), they typically pay about half the cost.
Patients undergo a comprehensive series of examinations to determine the health of their eyes. Wu also conducts a corneal topographic examination; approximately 10 percent of her patients require follow-up laser surgery for a stigmatism or a little bit of nearsightedness or farsightedness. "Every lens has some inherent unpredictability because the Crystalens moves inside the eye," she said.
With the possible need for follow-up surgery, and the exercise regimen needed for full recovery explained, the patient has all the information upfront to help avoid anxiety later on. "It's not just a slap it in your eye and everything's fine sort of thing," Wu said. "There is much effort and time involved. We tell everybody it's a process for the first year."
Typically, the operation is done on one eye at a time, with the second operation taking place one or two weeks later. "With Crystalens, two of them work better than one," Wu said. Patients receive anesthesia and a mild sedative. Then the lens is implanted through a small incision. "The actual surgery itself is not a big deal," Wu said. "Basically, it's the same procedure as all cataract patients undergo."
Patients must return for regular checkups and wear a patch or sunglasses until the eyes are healed. It takes several months for most Crystalens patients to regain full reading vision without glasses. "It varies from person to person," Wu said.
"Most people will generally read 20/30 or 20/40, which is smaller than newspaper print, but it takes six months to a year to achieve that."
The rapidness of the recovery depends, in part, on the patient's diligence in following a series of eye exercises that includes doing find-a-word puzzles. "We tell the patients to do the puzzles or read without glasses at least 15 to 20 minutes a day, basically forcing the lenses to start to work," Wu said.
Ligums was the rare patient who got the full effect of the surgery instantaneously. "I did the puzzle books because I felt I should, but I felt immediate results I could live with when Dr. Wu took the patch off," she said. During the period between surgeries, Ligums was able to compare the good eye with the bad. "I couldn't see birds out of the other eye," she said.
She's been talking to friends and family members about getting Crystalens for their own eyes. Her husband, John, rushed right into the NEEC office but was told his eyes weren't bad enough to require them. "He was disappointed," Ligums said
For more information about Crystalens, call the New England Eye Center at 617-636-7800 or 888-515-2745 or visit www.mylasikdoc.com.
|
|
|
 |
|
