Monovision LASIK offers presbyopic and pre-presbyopic patients the ability to retain near and distance vision after LASIK surgery with little or no reliance on glasses or contact lenses. If you are over 40, wear bifocals or need reading glasses, you may want to discuss monovision with your LASIK surgeon.
As we age, we lose the ability to focus our eyes on objects at different distances. This ability, called accommodation, becomes impaired as the lenses of our eyes lose their flexibility and begin to harden in a natural aging process called presbyopia. People with presbyopia symptoms often need bifocals or two pairs of glasses for distance and near vision. Even patients who undergo conventional LASIK still need glasses to correct for presbyopia after surgery, because LASIK cannot treat presbyopia — it reshapes the cornea, not the lens.
With conventional LASIK, both eyes are corrected for distance vision, leaving some patients in need of glasses for reading and other daily activities that require looking at objects close-up. Monovision LASIK preserves good near and distance vision without this need for corrective eyewear. The procedure optimizes one eye for distance sight and the other eye for near sight. With a little practice, patients learn to adjust their vision to accommodate between different distances.
Alternatives to monovision LASIK include reading glasses and lens replacement surgery.
