Do you have cataracts and need cataract surgery? If you want to make the most of cataract surgery, you should choose a premium lens.
Premium lenses can help you see better than ever before, including before having cataracts. They can also potentially reduce and even eliminate the need for other visual aids, including reading glasses!
Many kinds of premium lenses are available and See Clearly Vision in Tysons Corner offers several to ensure our cataract patients have the best quality of life after cataract surgery. Choosing an IOL may seem overwhelming, but you’re in excellent hands with our team.
Keep reading to learn more about your premium lens options in Tysons Corner and which could be best for your visual goals after cataract surgery!
What is an Intraocular Lens, and Why Do You Need One?
When considering cataract surgery, it’s essential to understand why you need a lens and your options. Premium lenses offer unique benefits that can significantly improve your vision, meaning you could achieve better vision than before cataracts.
Knowing what the lens does and its role in cataract surgery can help you decide which premium lens is right for you. When you have cataract surgery, your eye’s natural lens is removed.
Removing the natural lens is the only way to remove the cataract that’s formed inside the lens. Your natural lens is necessary to help your eye focus light correctly, so you must replace it once removed to ensure you can see clearly.
The replacement lens is called an intraocular lens, or IOL. Before you have cataract surgery, you and your cataract surgeon at See Clearly Vision will work together to choose your IOL.
They will recommend the best IOL for you based on your lifestyle, visual goals, and visual needs after cataract surgery. Although you can opt for the standard option, called a monofocal IOL, choosing a premium IOL can offer you much more and provide you with a broader range of visual possibilities.
Standard IOLs vs. Premium IOLs
The standard lens option for cataract surgery is a monofocal lens. Monofocal IOLs are uniform all over and can only be set to a single refractive power.
A monofocal IOL will allow you to see well at a distance or up close, meaning you’ll still need glasses to see at the opposite distance. Monofocal IOLs are the only IOLs included in the cost of cataract surgery.
In rare cases, some patients can get monovision. Monovision involves putting one monofocal lens in your eye to see up close, and the other monofocal lens is put in your other eye to see at a distance.
With monovision, you can see well enough between the two distances. However, only some people’s eyes can adjust to using monovision. Even if they can, monovision doesn’t give them the clearest vision up close or the broadest range of clear vision.
Premium lenses aren’t included in the cost of cataract surgery like monofocal lenses. However, although there is an out-of-pocket cost with premium IOLs, this means far more visual versatility.
There are several kinds of premium lenses that can offer better vision and a wide range of distances, allowing you to lead the type of active lifestyle you want without compromise!
Premium Lens Options
When you have cataract surgery at See Clearly Vision in Tysons Corner, you’ll have a few options for premium lenses. In addition to the standard monofocal lens, we offer some of the most advanced IOL options on the market:
Multifocal Lens
Multifocal lenses are composed of rings that come out from the center of the lens. These rings alternate between two refractive powers: one for distance vision and one for up-close vision.
This allows you to see very well at both distances, as the eyes automatically look through the part of the lens that best enables you to see at the distance you’re viewing an object from.
Accommodative Lens
Accommodative lenses mimic the function of your natural lens. Like your natural lens, it changes shape when you focus on something up close, becoming thicker to magnify what you’re looking at.
The accommodative lens is easy to adjust to because it works similarly to your natural lens.
Toric Lens
Toric lenses are the only lenses that are specifically designed to correct astigmatism. Other kinds of IOLs can correct nearsightedness and farsightedness, but a toric lens can also correct mild astigmatism.
Some other premium IOLs come in toric models, so you don’t need to choose between correcting astigmatism and getting the benefits from a top-of-the-line premium IOL!
Could a Premium Lens Be Right for You?
Light Adjustable Lens
The Light Adjustable Lens (LAL) is a revolutionary IOL that can give you totally customized vision. It’s the only intraocular lens that allows you to customize your vision after cataract surgery.
The Light Adjustable Lens is placed inside your eye during cataract surgery. Once you’ve healed from the procedure, a UV light delivery device can change and modify its shape.
The photosensitive material can be molded to fit your visual needs and is adjusted over a few sessions to give you time to “test drive” your vision. This allows patients to have an IOL tailored to them for the clearest vision possible!
Choosing Your Premium Lens
Your cataract surgeon can help you choose a lens that best suits your needs. Talk to them about your options, budget, and goals for cataract surgery.
They can make recommendations and tell you more about each option. From there, you can decide together and feel confident that you’ve chosen the best IOL for your vision and life!
Are you ready to change your life? Say goodbye to cataracts by scheduling your appointment today at See Clearly Vision in Tysons Corner, McLean, and Arlington, VA! It’s time to see clearly again!