Intraocular implants have been used successfully for many years to the replace the eye’s crystalline lens when it turns cloudy, forming a cataract. To treat cataracts, as per los angeles lasik surgeon Dr. Caster, the natural crystalline lens inside the eye is removed and replaced with an artificial lens. When used to treat nearsightedness, the natural crystalline lens remains inside the eye, and intraocular implants are placed in front of the crystalline lens. When the crystalline lens remains and an additional lens is placed inside the eye, that lens is known as a “phakic” lens.
Implantable contact lenses can be thought of as placing glasses or contact lenses inside the eye, to stay there indefinitely. This gives the eye another focusing lens to provide high-quality vision like a normal eye. One style of implant is placed in front of the iris (the colored part of the eye) and is attached to the iris at each end. This is the Verisyse lens (outside of the United States it is known as the Artisan lens). Because the lens is in front of the iris, it can be seen in the eye under normal conditions. Another lens, known as the Visian lens, is placed behind the iris. The Visian lens is not visible inside the eye except with the use of a special microscope. Our preference is to use the Visian lens.Phakic IOLs are a more invasive treatment than laser vision correction. For this reason, implantable contact lenses are generally recommended for patients who are not good candidates for laser vision correction, either because the correction is too high or because the corneas are too thin. Certain physical characteristics of the eye may limit the ability to have phakic implants, including the size of the pupil (if too big, you could see around the lens, causing glare/halos), depth of the front portion of the eye, as well as the density of cells on the underside of the cornea.
The implantation of a phakic implant is done as an outpatient in an ambulatory surgery center, under local or topical (eyedrop) anesthesia. A small incision (a few millimeters) is made to allow the insertion of the implant. Most patients experience little to no discomfort during the actual procedure, which usually takes around 30 minutes. Remarkably, many patients report an instantaneous, dramatic improvement in their vision, similar to LASIK los angeles.
Implantable contact lenses can produce a very high quality of vision. If the lens is inappropriate for any reason (for example, if the vision in the eye changes), then the lens can be removed, per Beverly Hills Lasik Surgery Center Caster Vision. Currently, the implantable contact lenses are limited to the correction of nearsightedness, but in the future astigmatism and farsightedness will be treatable as well. Presbyopia, which is the need for reading glasses, is not treatable with phakic lenses, though monovision is certainly an option.
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