Will glasses soon be obsolete? Maybe so, according to this article at Tech Crunch (via Hotair):
Unless you’re a Hipster, eyeglasses are a major pain: kids wearing them get bullied, they’re expensive, they don’t play well with sports, and they can’t make up for perfect 20/20 vision. Finally, there may be a cure for nearsightedness (“Myopia”) on the horizon. Biomedical scientist David Trolio has experimented with a new contact lens that prevents the eye from malforming at a young age in the first place, by refocusing light as it hits the eye. He and his colleagues at State University of New York (SUNY) College of Optometry “successfully reduced the elongation of the eye that causes myopia progression.”
I wonder if this technology will work for adults? I wonder how young one has to be to get it done? I guess the rest of us will just have to deal with the bullying (really?), the cost (what about Costco?) and the imperfect vision. I am tired of wearing glasses and having vision problems but look how long it’s taken to perfect Lasik (and it’s still not great). Will this technology be that much better? I hope so.
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Image via shutterstock / wavebreakmedia
I’m too old and running out of arms and legs with which to purchase it, anyway.
For an alternative to Lasik do a search on “Clear Lens Replacement” and/or “Refractive Lens Exchange”, it’s a better choice in some cases. I don’t know if it has drawback that’s always keep me away from Lasik – you might still need glasses down the road. If you’re close to blind without glasses then that’s probably an OK risk but if you don’t need your glasses to find your glasses then I don’t really see the point. Why spend money and take the risks to get away from glasses and then have to wear glasses anyway?
I had Lasik about 15 years ago. My vision was in the “need my glasses to find my glasses” stage. It was so bad that – without glasses – I couldn’t even see the eye chart much less the big “E” (20/200) top line. After Lasik, my vision was 20/20. To me, it was almost a miracle.
A couple years ago, I noticed that I was straining a little to read street signs. An eye exam showed that I had a mild issue that would easily be corrected by inexpensive glasses. I only need them when driving and even then, the effect is a minor improvement. When I had the procedure, my doctor told me that one day I would need reading glasses. I have a cheap set but only use then for really fine print or if the lighting is poor.
For me, Lasik was worth every penny and I paid top dollar for it. My eye doctor was the best, most experienced guy in town. He’d been doing vision correction procedures for over 15 years when I went to him. When it comes to my eyes, I wasn’t looking for a bargain. Over all the years when I didn’t need glasses, I saved enough money by not having to buy expensive glasses every year to pay for the Lasik procedure twice over.
Your mileage may vary. The technology today is much more advanced than when I had the procedure.
This isn’t new. They have been fiddling around with these eye-shaping contacts for almost 40 years. A friend of mine tried this around 1980.