The ideal patient has a significant problem, issue, or compromise in their quality of life and realistic expectations.

But that’s your ideal patient, and the reason I have to say those two things is that I have a range of options for treating presbyopia which is both safe and very effective, and life-enhancing. That being said, none of them is time travelling back to being 21 years old again, and they all involve some element of compromise.

And that results in two things:

1. Firstly, there needs to be a significant issue. So occasionally the patient will come to see me in the clinic, and they’ve just started with their presbyopia symptoms. But most the time they can see very well. They hardly need to use spectacles and the situations they describe frustrating can be remedied by putting a better light on the task. For that patient, I’ll say, “look I’m not saying there’s no issue here, but it is relatively mild, and my advice would be to leave things alone. I think you’re okay for now.”
2. When things have moved on, and we have more than an issue to address, it’s compromising the range of focus the range of functions, compromising someone’s quality of life, making them feel old and stopping doing things they want to do then absolutely we can help. But all of the technologies involve a process of adaptation. For example, with PRESBYOND blended vision LASIK laser eye surgery, the vision is excellent on day one, but it takes about six months for it to feel completely natural for a patient. Over that period there will be times where it can feel like the eyes aren’t quite working together, that they’re not quite joining, only transient short episodes. Those episodes become shorter, less frequent and severe as the weeks turned into months so eventually it is seamless and comfortable. But I do have to ask for people to be a little bit patient just through that period of adaptation as the eye settle down, their brain tunes into the range of focus of the PRESBYOND is giving.

So that is key, that the patient has a significant issue and that we can have a good discussion about where they are and how I can help, how that treatment process will work for them, and how we’re going to move them through it.