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Refractive Lens Exchange

Refractive lens exchange is also called clear lens exchange or lens replacement surgery. It is an effective way to correct a wide range of visual issues, including presbyopia. With this surgery, your eye’s natural lens will be replaced with an intraocular lens (IOL) to improve the clarity and sharpness of your vision.

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What is Clear Lens Exchange?

Clear lens exchange involves the same procedural steps used to treat cataracts. It is usually performed on older adults who do not have cataracts yet are experiencing other visual issues.

Clear lens exchange can treat:

  • Presbyopia
  • Myopia
  • Hyperopia
  • Astigmatism

What to Expect During Clear Lens Exchange?

During the surgery doctors remove the natural lens of the eye which is a thin, transparent structure behind the pupil that helps focus light rays onto the retina. Once removed, it’s replaced with an artificial intraocular lens. These premium modern implants can correct a wide array of visual errors helping to eliminate the need for glasses and contacts.

What are the Different Types of Clear Lens Exchange Lenses?

Different IOLs offer different visual outcomes. Some lenses are specifically designed to treat astigmatism while other lenses mimic your eye’s natural ability to focus on objects at various distances. These lenses can eliminate the need for glasses altogether, except when they may be needed to read very fine print.

refractive lens exchange diagram

What are the Benefits of Refractive Lens Exchange?

Refractive lens exchange offers many advantages when performed on patients who are good candidates. This procedure is an excellent choice for older adults as it can help correct common refractive vision errors as well as problems with close vision.

The benefits of clear lens exchange include:

  • It is a safe procedure
  • It can improve age-related vision loss.
  • Performed on patients who are not candidates for other vision surgeries

Through a simple examination our doctors can determine if you can benefit from refractive lens exchange. For many patients, this procedure is a way to regain their clear, youthful vision.

What is the Difference Between Clear Lens Exchange and LASIK?

LASIK is a very effective eye surgery but it only corrects distance vision and does not treat presbyopia. Presbyopia is a normal age-related visual condition making it hard to focus on close-up images affecting nearly everyone sometime after age 40.

The only way that LASIK can correct presbyopia is if a patient elects to have monovision LASIK. Monovision LASIK fixes the distance vision of one eye, leaving the other nearsighted resulting in the patient being able to see at all distances. While this approach often accomplishes that goal, there is a bit of a compromise involved as there is a slight loss in visual clarity after a monovision LASIK procedure.

Clear Lens Exchange offers an alternative to monovision LASIK which allows patients to correct presbyopia and refractive errors while maintaining visual clarity. Most IOLs allow both eyes to focus on a variety of distances.

Contact SightMD today to schedule an appointment with one of our doctors to discuss your vision health at one of our convenient locations!