Dr Aloysius Joseph Low, the Chief Consultant Ophthalmic Surgeon at VISTA Eye Specialist came on as a guest columnist to give us the inside scoop about the eyes.They say 40 is the new 30! But your eyes may give you away.
Being in the eye healthcare industry for over twenty years, I’ve heard all sorts of stories, both funny and not so funny, from patients hitting 40 and above.
You're all dressed up to take your client for lunch at a posh restaurant, only to whip out a pair of ‘oldie-looking’ reading glasses to read the menu and check the bill at the end of the meal. Despite the smart cut of your yuppie power suit and new trendy shoes, you suddenly feel old because of your not-so-perfect reading vision. Who says 40 is the new 30?
And if you're around 40 and reading this, you've probably gone through the same situation that they did: went shopping and thought you found a great deal for a RM100 branded shirt, only to find out its RM700 when you took it to the cashier.
However, this is nothing to fret about. It is a natural progression in life. The majority of people in their 40s begin to experience deteriorating quality of their reading vision. This is known as presbyopia, or in regular lingo, ‘rabun dekat’ and ‘lou fa’. For many, reading is no longer a pleasure and worse still, modern technology has increased the need to read on-the-go from handheld objects such as handphones to the latest iPad.
What is presbyopia? Presbyopia is when our eye’s natural lens and muscles become too stiff to focus on near objects, due to age.
Distance vision is still clear, but objects up close are blurry. Occurs almost universally. So, if it’s just a sign of ageing, what’s the big deal?
I have friends of that certain age, who have to keep a pair of reading glasses in every room of their house, in every bag they carry. Reading glasses can be cumbersome but are still unavoidable for many people. Traditionally, there were several options to assist people who did not want to use reading glasses, but unfortunately, some of these procedures did not have a lasting effect, or compromised the patient’s distance vision.
If you are reading this with reading glasses or multi-focal glasses, you are one of over a billion people in the world who have presbyopia. Although a high rate of short-sightedness (myopia) in the Asian region enables many people with presbyopia to have functional near vision, the global prevalence of presbyopia is predicted to increase to 1.4 billion by the year 2020.
When I had my LASIK procedure for short-sightedness done in my 40s, I knew that it would be a matter of time before my near vision would no longer be as clear as before. The common procedure up to the mid-2000s for presbyopic patients with short-sightedness was to deliberately under-correct one eye for them to see near objects, even at the slight expense of their distance vision.
Fortunately for us, there is now a revolutionary solution available in Malaysia that can improve your reading vision for a lifetime, without compromising on your distance vision.
This is a recent innovative medical device from the USA, the AcuFocus KAMRAÔ inlay, a corneal inlay that restores natural reading vision for presbyopia sufferers. It is a micro-thin inlay in the shape of a ‘micro-disc’ with an opening in the centre, much like a tiny black Polo mint.
The corneal inlay restores near and intermediate vision while maintaining distance vision via a ‘pinhole effect’ that focuses light entering into the eye and blocks unfocused light from reaching the retina.
Lighter than a grain of salt and precision-embedded in the cornea, the inlay is barely visible to the naked eye, and patients will not feel it at all.
The procedure will not affect the patient’s suitability for further vision correction procedures such as cataract surgery, and what's more, does not involve any tissue removal. For short-sighted patients, LASIK is first performed on both eyes to improve distance vision, and then the corneal inlay is placed in one eye to improve near vision. It involves just a 15-20 minute procedure.
Available in Singapore since March 2008, the corneal inlay is also now available for the first time in Malaysia at VISTA Eye Specialist.
The first batch of Malaysian patients who received their corneal inlay in May this year reported a noticeable difference in their near vision within the same day itself. Within days, the majority of patients were able to read moderate to small-sized print unaided, such as text on their mobile phones.
Over the years, I have received so many patient requests for something that can restore their reading vision for a lifetime. If you’re one of those who can pull off that sophisticated, bespectacled look, count yourself fortunate. But, if like my patients you find your style and freedom cramped by those reading glasses, the corneal inlay may very well be the solution that you have been waiting for.
This is a recent innovative medical device from the USA, the AcuFocus KAMRAÔ inlay, a corneal inlay that restores natural reading vision for presbyopia sufferers. It is a micro-thin inlay in the shape of a ‘micro-disc’ with an opening in the centre, much like a tiny black Polo mint.
The corneal inlay restores near and intermediate vision while maintaining distance vision via a ‘pinhole effect’ that focuses light entering into the eye and blocks unfocused light from reaching the retina.
Lighter than a grain of salt and precision-embedded in the cornea, the inlay is barely visible to the naked eye, and patients will not feel it at all.
The procedure will not affect the patient’s suitability for further vision correction procedures such as cataract surgery, and what's more, does not involve any tissue removal. For short-sighted patients, LASIK is first performed on both eyes to improve distance vision, and then the corneal inlay is placed in one eye to improve near vision. It involves just a 15-20 minute procedure.
Available in Singapore since March 2008, the corneal inlay is also now available for the first time in Malaysia at VISTA Eye Specialist.
The first batch of Malaysian patients who received their corneal inlay in May this year reported a noticeable difference in their near vision within the same day itself. Within days, the majority of patients were able to read moderate to small-sized print unaided, such as text on their mobile phones.
Over the years, I have received so many patient requests for something that can restore their reading vision for a lifetime. If you’re one of those who can pull off that sophisticated, bespectacled look, count yourself fortunate. But, if like my patients you find your style and freedom cramped by those reading glasses, the corneal inlay may very well be the solution that you have been waiting for.
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