Do you have first-person experience with monovision IOL implants?

Monovision is a strategy eye doctors use to deal with presbyopia in patients. Oversimplified, it is where one eye is "set" to see better up close while the other is "set" to distance. Since the brain does not really "see" two images, but rather a "fusion" of the best features of the two eyes, monovision can often provide both distance and near vision using single-vision lenses when using both eyes together. While originally developed for contact lens wearers, monovision is also used in presbyopic LASIK patients and even people having cataract/IOL surgery.

Although there are presbyopia-correcting IOLs now, none of these are perfect. They furthermore cannot always be used -for example, in many people who may have had RK or LASIK in the past. Though not for everyone, in the right kind of patient monovision is a very good way to provide both near and distance vision without glasses -and it is considerably less expensive than presbyopic IOLs.

_Written by J. Trevor Woodhams, M.D. - Chief of Surgery, Woodhams Eye Clinic