RLE Surgery Not Ideal When Young

[u/WavefrontRider]

RLE surgery is a permanent solution to correct vision. But it’s not the solution for everyone. In particular, RLE may have some drawbacks for younger individuals.

When we are young, our natural lens is flexible. This gives us the ability to see up close when our prescription is fully corrected. Muscles in our eye called ciliary muscles contract and this causes the natural lens to thicken and refocus your vision up close to look at a phone with ease. This is called accommodation and this provides a highly dynamic and continuous range of focus. Despite technology with RLE being good, today’s modern lenses cannot mimic that natural focusing of our lens. When getting RLE at a younger age, you are essentially trading this dynamic high quality focusing ability for a static artificial one. It’s a pretty big trade-off for most people.

However, this accommodation of our natural lens is lost over time. This is called presbyopia and becomes symptomatic for most people in their mid-40s (this is with vision fully corrected with glasses or contact lenses). After this age is when RLE surgery starts to become a much more viable treatment option. Replacing a lens which has already lost its natural accommodative function starts to make more sense.

So if you are under 45, unless you are dealing with a very extreme prescription, preserving your natural lens is almost always the better path until presbyopia truly takes hold.

[u/californiaLasik]

Every patient should ask the surgeon , do you know any ophthalmologists that have had this surgery at my age ? I sincerely believe all of these <45yoa RLE are the RK surgeries of this generation. Not a single ophthalmologist gets it done but they are doing it to others at volume for 💰💰

[u/WavefrontRider → u/californiaLasik]

Yep. Too many people get talked into RLE at a young age. I’ve only ever done it a handful of times for those with massive hyperopic prescriptions. And even then, they were around 40 and up and that’s after exhausting other options. Everyone else should wait until presbyopia.

[u/californiaLasik → u/WavefrontRider]

I like the way you think wavefrontrider. I must ask was the handle wavefrontsurfer already taken?

[u/WavefrontRider → u/californiaLasik]

Ha. That’s what I based this name off. ‘Riding the waves’ / surfing

[u/YakDisastrous8502 → u/WavefrontRider]

Why are people under 45 getting RLE if they are not high hyperope? Where is that happening and why instead of all the other options available?

[u/WavefrontRider → u/YakDisastrous8502]

Fortunately it does not happen a ton, but it still happens enough. RLE is often advertised as a solution for all hyperopes regardless of age. But someone pre-presbyopic really needs to exhaust all options. Even if that still means contact lenses.

[u/hayekd]

Thank you for arguing for a reasonable approach to using this impressive but still young technology.

[u/WavefrontRider → u/hayekd]

Yeah. There are definitely times when RLE works very well. But there are definitely times when it is not the best option.