Refractive Cataract Surgery (Premium IOL)
Serving Seattle, Bellevue, Everett, Olympia, and Tacoma, WA
A cataract is a clouding of the eye’s natural lens. They can affect vision in many ways, including:
- Blurred, foggy, or hazy vision
- Sensitivity to glare and bright lights
- Difficulty reading or seeing details, especially in dim light
- Double vision or “ghost” images
- Eye strain or fatigue
Cataracts result primarily from the normal aging of the eye, but affect people at different rates and degrees. Risk factors for cataracts include a family history of cataracts, eye injury or disease, smoking, and use of certain medications such as steroids.
Intraocular lens implant
If you are significantly affected by cataracts, Cataract Surgeon Dr. Leavitt may recommend cataract surgery. There is no known way of removing the cataract from the lens, so instead, the lens is removed and replaced with a clear artificial lens. Loss of the natural lens means loss of the eye’s ability to accommodate.
Accommodation is the feature we take for granted in our eyes, of instantly adjusting to different distances, giving us a clear image of our book while we read, and of the tree down the street when we look out the window. The lens does this by changing its convexity from flatter to steeper and back again. Tiny muscles control this lens movement, called ciliary muscles.
In past years, there were no IOLs which could give clear images at differing distances. They were set to specific distances. This meant that they did not replace any of the eye’s lost ability to accommodate.
How IOLs work
More recently, several IOLs have been developed which use different technologies to simulate accommodation:
- Crystalens™ – made by Eyeonics®, this is the only IOL which is attached to the eye’s ciliary muscles and allows them to move it. This mimics accommodation. Crystalens uses all the incoming light and sends it to one focal point, rather than to different zones in its structure. It gives clear vision at all distances by moving back or forward according to the distance you are focusing on.
- ReZoom™ -- made by Advanced Medical Optics of a highly-refractive acrylic material, this lens has five multifocal zones. They are concentric circles, becoming thinner towards the periphery. They give clear vision at all distances.
- ReSTORE® – made by Alcon® from a proprietary material specially developed for the eyes. This lens uses something called apodized diffractive technology. Apodization is a gradual transition in refractive power from the center of the lens to its periphery. Diffraction is scattering of light rather than focusing of it. The ReSTORE lens diffracts incoming light to different focal points in its transitioning refractive power. This gives you clear images for both near and distance vision.
The decision as to which IOL would be best for you is one that you and Dr. Leavitt can make together. He will explain each one and answer your questions. In this era of sophisticated vision correction and eye surgeries, there is little need to live with poor vision or heavy dependence on glasses or contact lenses.
Please contact our cataract eye surgeon today to arrange an initial consultation if you are in the Seattle, WA. area. Both Dr. Leavitt and his knowledgeable eye surgery staff will be glad to answer your questions and show you around our inviting facilities.