When we age, it affects all parts of the body and that includes our eyes. Aging results in the lens of the eye to start to harden and become less flexible which can affect vision. The lasik surgeons in Los Angeles have seen patients who have difficulty focusing on things up close clearly. As a result of aging, farsightedness, or known medically as “presbyopia” is caused.
Even the best lasik surgeons in Los Angeles will tell you that anyone over the age of 35 is at risk for presbyopia. According to the New York Times, by the age of 45, over 80 percent of Americans will suffer from presbyopia, and by age 50, almost everyone will.
What Can Be Done For Farsightedness (Presbyopia)?
There are some ways you can train your eyes as well as your brain to see better and therefore you can eventually slow the onset of presbyopia. When presbyopia begins, it is progressive. Although some special eye exercises could help to improve it, it will usually have to be treated with reading glasses, prescription glasses, or corrective refractive surgery.
Other reports claim that presbyopia mostly starts in your 40s and can keep progressing until the age of 65. The lasik surgeons in Los Angeles can treat presbyopia with laser eye surgeries, such as monovision LASIK (laser-assisted in-situ keratomileusis), PRK (photorefractive keratectomy), RLE (refractive lens exchange), or corneal inlays.
What Happens When The Eyes Age?
When you are young, the lens of the eye, which light travels through, is usually flexible. The muscle fibers that are affixed to the lens are strong and agile and help to focus light straight onto the retina.
Aging makes the lens of the eye start to harden. As the lasik surgeons in Los Angeles explain besides the muscles attached to the lens not working as competently as they used to, this results in the light focusing behind the retina, making it more difficult to focus clearly on objects which are close up. Images and text will appear blurry, and you might notice yourself holding newspapers and menus further away from you to read them.
What Causes Presbyopia?
Besides the aging, eye strain, headaches, and trouble seeing clearly in low light are symptoms of presbyopia, which can start as early as the age of 35. The American Optometric Association (AOA) claims that the first reported occurrence of presbyopia is normally between the ages of 42 and 44, and age is the most prevalent risk factor for the condition.
These are risk factors that can increase this type of farsightedness:
- Systemic disease
- Cardiovascular disease
- Trauma to the eyes
- Geographical factors (such as proximity to the equator and ultraviolet light exposure)
- Eye strain due to occupational reasons
- Poor nutrition
- Gender (females usually develop it earlier, often related to menopause)
- Untreated hyperopia (farsightedness)
- Drug side effects
How To Prevent Presbyopia?
If you take care of yourself and your eyes, you can help delay the onset of presbyopia. That is why consuming balanced meals, protecting your eyes from the sun, not straining your eyes too much, and watch out for any drug side effects that may affect vision. If you make the effort to do all this, you can help reduce your risk for early-onset presbyopia.
Using methods of training your eyes, which can also train your brain, can work as a good preventative measure for aging eyes. Some studies reveal that improving non-cognitive learning can boost visual processing and increase reading speeds, which can decrease the risk of presbyopia happening too early.
You can do some exercises that can help the way your brain processes visual information, which may improve up-close reading capacities and speed. These exercises can help the brain to decipher what it is seeing faster, and as a result, sharpen probable blurry images and put them back into focus.
The exercises consist of having someone look at images known as Gabor patches with diverse contrast for a few minutes. This happens for many sessions every week for months. You can also look into smartphone apps that encourage visual training and eye exercises. You cannot completely prevent presbyopia, but you can push out the onset of this condition with particular eye exercises and general good health.
What To Do When Presbyopia Begins?
The middle-aged are more susceptible to presbyopia and are also the easiest to treat. Normally, presbyopia is treating with reading glasses. To start with, the reading glasses don’t have to be prescription strength, and you might only need reading glasses for certain tasks.
Presbyopia can crop up with the appearance of other refractive errors such as myopia (nearsightedness). When this is the case, you may need bifocals, which are eyeglasses that can correct for both myopia and presbyopia with different levels of prescription on the lenses in various places. While presbyopia progresses, you may require eyewear in the form of either contacts or eyeglasses.
Most of the time, people decide that they perhaps do not want to wear glasses or don’t like the fact that glasses make them look old. If you want a permanent fix, laser corrective eye surgery can provide aesthetic and visual advantages.
Here are two surgical alternatives for treating presbyopia.
Monovision LASIK (laser-assisted in-situ keratomileusis): This is a type of LASIK that uses a specialized laser to cut a little flap in the cornea that is then folded back to access the stroma. The surgeon shapes the stroma and gives more depth in one eye to correct farsightedness. Then, the eye surgeon replaces the epithelial corneal flap so it can heal on its own.
PRK (photorefractive keratectomy): If you have corneas that are too thin for LASIK, your Los Angeles ophthalmologist will recommend PRK since it doesn’t need a lot of epithelial tissue.
To be a suitable candidate for corrective laser eye surgery, your eye prescription has to stay the same for at least a year. This is because presbyopia is progressive, it may be the case that you will have to wait a while before having surgery as an option for your eyes to stabilize.
If you think you may have presbyopia, contact Excel Laser Vision Institute a call at + (818) 907-8606 today. Our team of dedicated and experienced ophthalmologists can diagnose and treat your farsightedness for you!
