If we live long enough all of us have a good chance of having cataracts. In the USA about 3 million operations occur annually making cataract surgery one the most common eye surgeries. The reason it becomes so highly recommended has been it improves the vision dramatically if all that is wrong is a clouded lens. By age 75 to 85 nearly 90 percent have a cataract in formation. To accommodate that natural aging process ReStor Apodized Diffractive IOL has been created.
ReStor Apodized Diffractive IOL
IOL stands for intraocular lens. To further clarify it “intra” means within and “ocular’ means eye. So a ReStor lens becomes placed within the eye and more specifically it replaces the natural lens of the eye. Apodized defines as a filtering in the eye where the surface receives an alteration to remove an irregularity. Diffraction means to bend light. ReStor is the brand name of the process. All of this occurs on a lens the size of the end of your pinky. The purpose becomes to restore your sight to the best it can be so you can enjoy a lovely sunny day any way you like. A threefold system the refractive part acts like a regular IOL for distance vision. It has an added feature to make the most of a person’s night vision. The diffractive part has 12 portions in concentric rings and gives distance and near vision. The apodization declines the height of the concentric rings so that it balances the light energy. This improves the quality of the near vision. All of which replaces your original lens.
Side Effects
Seeing halos has been a problem and some patients report glare effects. For some patients the problems were bad enough to ask for removal of the lens. Halos are rainbows that form in bright areas of light. Glare is a flash of light so bright it hurts the eyes. It takes much more time to adjust to a ReStor lens than a standard lens.
Selection
It’s extremely important that you select a well-qualified doctor like those found at Sugarland Eye & Laser Center who are experts in LASIK and laser eye surgery in Houston. The Multifocal ReStor has specific parameters that must be met to have the optimum outcome in vision. The patient must have reasonable expectations to have better distance and near vision. The technology of multifocal lens is fairly new so Medicaid, and Medicare do not cover it fully as of yet and most insurances do not either. Make sure you talk to insurances providers to see what they will or will not cover.
Conclusion
Much more research and much more patient participation will be needed to create the clinical trials to give definitive data on the long-term effects of multifocal ReStor. Most patient’s express satisfaction after the procedure with their restored sight. It’s just when it does not work for a patient the effects are dramatic but like other surgeries of its type additional surgery can correct the aberration or the lens changed to another type.
Sugarland Eye & Laser Center leads in providing premium LASIK technologies to Houston, Sugar Land, and the surrounding region. The center’s award-winning medical director introduced revolutionary technologies such as iLASIK to the region. This technology is used by NASA astronauts, Navy SEALS and Air Force fighter pilots. At Sugar Land Eye & Laser Center, you can now receive the same treatment. For more information, please call (281) 240-0478.
Via
http://www.aao.org/eyenet/article/experts-share-their-results-with-restor?julyaugust-2005
http://www.karger.com/Article/FullText/363372
http://www.aao.org/eyenet/article/when-to-use-multifocal-intraocular-lenses?september-2006:
