Cataracts form in the natural crystalline lenses of the eyes and cause them to harden and become clouded, leading to vision loss and other impairments. Cataract surgery is a highly successful procedure that replaces the cloudy natural eye lens with an intraocular lens (IOL) implant. The Light Adjustable Lens (LAL) is a revolutionary new IOL implant that allows our cataract surgeon to correct your vision after surgery and healing, offering the best-corrected eyesight to reduce or eliminate your need for corrective eyewear.
What Makes Light Adjustable Lenses Different
The standard IOL is a monofocal lens that corrects your vision for one focal point so it can adjust for nearsightedness or farsightedness, but not both. Multifocal IOLs offer more improvement, but these options rely on measurements taken before cataract surgery to estimate the lens power you need to see clearly on all fronts. Once implanted, patients are stuck with the estimated lens power, but LAL changes this process entirely.
LAL gives you and Mark Mandel MD the ability to adjust the lens power about one month after it is surgically placed and the eye has healed. Dr. Mandel performs cataract surgery, and after recovery, you come to one of our Bay Area locations for two to four light treatments. The lens uses photochemistry and diffusion properties with silicone photoreactive additives called macromers. These macromers become polymers when exposed to ultraviolet (UV) light, which changes the shape of the lens and refractive power. These light treatments cause spherical and cylindrical changes to fine-tune your vision after cataract surgery.
Once the light adjustments are satisfactory for you and Dr. Mandel, the entire lens is exposed to UV light to polymerize all remaining macromers, locking them in place to prevent further lens changes. This ability to enhance results offers cataract patients the best visual outcome for nearsightedness, farsightedness, astigmatism and presbyopia.
Patients involved in an FDA study with LAL were twice as likely to reach 20/20 vision without glasses than patients with monofocal IOLs.
Light Treatments After Cataract Surgery with LAL
The sun emits UV light, and so do some indoor light sources. Patients must wear UV-protective glasses when awake to prevent UV exposure from altering the lens before light treatments. These glasses can be removed when you’re sleeping or showering as long as you’re away from direct sunlight and UV-emitting light sources or devices. Light treatments take around 90 seconds to complete and are spaced three to seven days apart.
If you’re interested in Light Adjustable Lens for your cataract surgery, contact Mark Mandel MD in the Bay area today. Schedule an eye exam and consultation at one of our offices by calling (877) 210-2020 ext 3 or filling out our online contact form.