Refractive Errors

The cornea is the tough, resilient, membrane that is the outermost part of the eye in front of the pupil and the iris. Typically 500 to 600 microns in thickness, the cornea does about 80% of the focusing for the eye at distance.

Where the eye is a bit longer (myopia)or a bit shorter (hyperopia) than it should be, or where an astigmatism (a cornea that is shaped more like a football than a baseball) is present, patients will experience difficulty focusing at distance. Glasses and contact lenses have been typically used for these cases. Now, with the advent of laser vision correction, a laser can gently and painlessly reshape the cornea to help these patients focus at distance without glasses or contact lenses.


Reading Vision

Inside the eye, behind the cornea, the pupil and the iris, the lens is responsible for bringing in the focus so that we can read. The lens has a muscle that can squeeze it to make it more convex, and bring the focus to near. As we reach our forties and fifties, this mechanism will fail to function optimally. Patients will notice an inability to focus up close. The condition is called presbyopia. For those individuals where the vision at distance is still good, reading glasses will now be required, for those that also have difficulty at distance, progressive lenses, bifocals or trifocals may be called for. Laser vision correction can treat presbyopia and turn back the clock to restore near vision and socially unburden patients.