PRESBYOND ® presbyopia treatment2020-11-13T11:43:38+00:00

PRESBYOND ®

Read again without glasses
TAKE A FAST SUITABILITY QUIZ
Book a consultation

For FAQs regarding Coronavirus please click here

What is PRESBYOND?

Also known as Laser Blended Vision or presbyopia surgery, PRESBYOND enables you to see both far in the distance and up-close with only one laser procedure
Book a consultation

Who can PRESBYOND help?

Can you see yourself below?

YOU’RE 45 TO 49

You have been frustrated with your glasses or contact lenses all your life. Or, you have just begun to become annoyed with your new need for reading glasses. If that’s you, I can help you see clearly without either.

YOU’RE 50 TO 60

You might have become accustomed to wearing reading glasses, varifocals or multifocal contact lenses. If a combination of these solutions is not ideal for you, I can help you see clearly again without them.

Live a richer life without reading glasses or varifocals

PRESBYOND is an excellent solution if you want a safe and effective treatment for short-sightedness, long-sightedness, astigmatism and presbyopia

GAIN CLEAR VISION AT BOTH DISTANCE AND NEAR

Imagine seeing the whole of the world without the need for glasses or contact lenses. You’ll have a freedom that some patients call “life-changing”.

FEEL MORE CONFIDENCE AND CONVENIENCE

Most patients say they wish they’d done it sooner. You may feel more confident and will certainly experience more convenience.

IMAGINE AN AVERAGE DAY WITHOUT READING GLASSES OR VARIFOCALS

Awaken ready to read the morning headlines on your mobile or tablet. Take a shower without the blurriness. Work and exercise without glasses or the dryness of contact lenses. Stop the constant need to put your glasses on and off. Don’t worry about where you’ve left your readers or needing to keep half a dozen pair around the house.

LOOK AS YOUNG AS YOU FEEL

We’re not getting any younger, but that doesn’t mean we have to pull out the granny glasses every time we want to read the text on our phones.

DON’T ACCEPT LIMITATIONS

You might feel as fit as you did in your 20s and 30s, so there’s no reason why your eyes shouldn’t be able to keep up. These days, we spend so much time switching between looking at things up close and seeing things far away – why allow your glasses to get in the way?

Affiliations and memberships

I am proud to be associated with these organisations as a member or consultant

Vision correction enables you to experience a richer life without spectacles or contacts

Take one of the first steps and find out if you are suitable
TAKE A FAST SUITABILITY QUIZ
Book a consultation

Supplementary information about PRESBYOND ®

In my expert hands, you certainly don’t need to know all of the information I’ve included in the toggles below. If you’d like to know how it all works, however, open them and learn more.

For patients in their 20s to 30s, optometrists and ophthalmologists prescribe glasses, contact lenses or laser eye surgery to correct their prescription to zero. As a result, they no longer need glasses for distance or for near because they are able to use the muscle in their eye to activate the focusing mechanism and see up close without glasses.

Patients aged 45 and over, however, correcting their prescription to zero in both eyes leaves them dependent on reading glasses because of a phenomenon called presbyopia.

This is where we all, unfortunately, lose the ability to focus the eyes on small print as we age. Some presbyopic patients are quite happy to aim for zero prescription in both eyes and wear reading glasses.

For others, this defeats the purpose of having laser eye surgery. In this latter group of patients who really do want to be glasses-free for all but the finest of near visual tasks (for example, reading tiny print) a technique called monovision is very successful.

Monovision

Monovision is a type of refractive surgery which involves correcting the prescription in the dominant eye (whichever eye your brain prefers to use for looking through a gun-sight or a camera viewfinder) to zero and partially correcting the non-dominant eye to a prescription of between -1.00 to -2.00D, depending on the results of your tests.

PRESBYOND®

PRESBYOND ® or laser blended vision, is an evolution of monovision with the specific benefit that the blend between the two eyes is superior and the overall depth of focus is better throughout the entire visual range.

Using a technique called “blended vision”, PRESBYOND ® laser eye surgery resets the vision in both eyes and therefore, corrects presbyopia.

It is a type of laser eye surgery I use to correct distance and reading vision in patients aged 45 and older who need or will soon need reading glasses as well as their distance glasses.

PRESBYOND ® works by focusing one eye for the distance and the other eye for reading. Although this sounds like an alarming and unnatural thing to do, the principle of monovision upon which blended vision is based is nothing new and has been used by opticians, contact lens specialists and eye surgeons for decades.

It’s important to note that PRESBYOND addresses the symptoms of presbyopia (that is, trouble focusing on close objects) and not the cause (that is, the natural ageing process of the crystalline lens inside your eye). Therefore, you can slow down the effects of ageing eyes, but not completely cease it.

With that said, PRESBYOND offers a safe and effective interim step between needing reading glasses or varifocal glasses before eventually getting cataracts in later life. Furthermore, data from internal Optegra studies suggest that visual acuity (your chance of seeing 20/20 at distance) after PRESBYOND (99%) is better than after lens replacement (90.9%).

PRESBYOND carries all the same risks as LASIK. Depending on the specific treatment profile, you may also need a longer adaptation period (6 to 12 months) to experience settled results. These are not risks, per se, but known, expected and temporary side-effects.

Reading glasses have been used for centuries to relieve the symptom of presbyopia temporarily.

Recent advances in laser and lens implant technology have produced exciting new treatments to free people from the need to use reading glasses.

These surgical treatments are safe and effective and have the added bonus of correcting long-sightedness, short-sightedness and astigmatism; all at the same time.

In general, I can successfully treat patients aged 45 to 60 with no signs of cataract (clouding of the natural lens) formation with PRESBYOND ® laser correction surgery.

I can treat patients aged 60 and older, or younger patients with signs of early cataract formation with lens replacement or Refractive Lens Exchange with multifocal lens implants.

The steps involved are the same as the ones we use in LASIK. The only difference are the numbers we program into the laser.

Steps:

The outer layers of the cornea, which is the transparent tissue layer that sits over the eye, are lifted back by me, your eye surgeon, revealing the deeper cornea tissue. For the outer layer to be gently lifted, the femtosecond laser is used to send microscopic laser pulses onto the cornea, which causes bubbles to form underneath. This results in a flap, which the surgeon can lift and lay back easily and painlessly. I then reshape the cornea using an Excimer laser, correcting the eye’s refractive error. The flap is then replaced, and is smoothed back and the healing process begins.

Presbyopia is the eye condition which causes people aged 45 and older to need reading glasses.

Ageing of the eye’s natural lens which stiffens and loses its ability to focus causes presbyopic symptoms.

People with presbyopia gradually lose the ability to focus close up and become increasingly dependent on reading glasses.

If you are experiencing any of the following symptoms you are likely to be suffering from presbyopia:

  • the need to hold your phone further away to see it clearly
  • difficulty reading small print such as on your phone, in newspapers or magazines
  • difficulty keeping clear focus when reading
  • eye strain when reading for long periods.

In some patients, the presbyopia/stiffening of the lens becomes so advanced that it also affects the distance vision and they find that for the first time in their life they need to wear glasses to correct their distance vision such as for driving. This can come as quite a surprise and is a common trigger for patients to seek lens replacement or Refractive Lens Exchange.

Take the first step

Find out if your eyes are suitable for vision correction

Book a free screening now or get us to give you a call back to answer questions
Request a call back
BOOK A CONSULTATION

How it works

Enjoy a life free from glasses and contact lenses in 3 easy steps

STEP 1 – BOOK

STEP 2 – MEET

STEP 3 – ENJOY

Talk to us

TALK TO US

Book a video appointment or give us a call on 020 3808 7758 and we’ll help guide you towards a free screening.

MEET YOUR SURGEON

I’ll see you before treatment to ensure you’re a good candidate and treat you at one of my Harley Street London facilities.

ENJOY A RICHER LIFE

I’ll supervise your aftercare as you begin to experience a life free of glasses and contact lenses.

Even more information about the PRESBYOND eye surgery

I frequently write articles and publish videos to answer people’s most common questions and keep them updated on the latest developments in vision correction. Find out more below…

Can I get laser eye surgery?

If you dislike your glasses and contact lenses, you might be wondering "can I get laser eye surgery?" To find out whether you may qualify for this life-changing procedure, read on.

A clear look into the types of laser eye surgery in London

All laser eye surgery has the same general idea - a surgeon uses a laser to reshape your cornea, improving your vision. There are multiple ways a surgeon can do this, though. You need to know if you’re getting the right type of surgery. Take a look at these top types of laser eye surgery in London.

You don’t choose eye surgery from a menu

Some patients worry they will have to do a whole heap of work to choose the best eye surgery. Not on my watch. Below are some alternatives that you might have heard about, however, I believe it is my duty to choose which eye treatment is best for you after conducting a thorough examination

LASIK

LASIK is the most common form of laser vision correction. It’s a safe and effective treatment for short-sightedness, long-sightedness and astigmatism. Unlike PRESBYOND, LASIK will only correct your distance vision.

ReLEx® SMILE

SMILE works similarly to LASIK but is a less-invasive, keyhole treatment. For the moment, we do not offer SMILE with PRESBYOND.

LASEK

LASEK is a type of laser eye surgery, often used as an alternative treatment for those who are not suitable for LASIK eye surgery. Unlike PRESBYOND, LASEK will only correct your distance vision.

Implantable Contact lenses (ICL)

If you are one of the rare patients for whom laser eye surgery is not suitable, ICL lens implants offer a safe and extremely accurate option to free you from needing glasses.

This option is particularly suitable for you if the shape/thickness of cornea makes you ineligible for laser eye surgery; or, if you are so short- or long-sighted that you are out of the treatable prescription range with laser eye surgery.

Lens Replacement (RLE)

Lens replacement or Refractive Lens Exchange (RLE) is an advanced form of vision correction surgery which we use to treat patients over 50 years of age who need glasses for both distance and for reading.

The advantage of PRESBYOND surgery over refractive lens exchange surgery is that PRESBYOND is significantly less invasive and less expensive. However, the advantage of RLE over PRESBYOND is that the former permanently addresses your presbyopia and helps you avoid any chance of cataract in the future.

Refractive cataract surgery

If you have a cataract, removing that cataract and replacing your natural lens with a multifocal artificial lens will negate the need to have PRESBYOND, apart from using it as a top-up procedure.

Complex cataract surgery

If you have a cataract and another complicating eye condition, removing that cataract and replacing your natural lens with an artificial lens will negate the need to have PRESBYOND, apart from using it as a top-up procedure.

About the author

Mr Alex J. Shortt | Consultant Ophthalmic Surgeon

MB BCh MSc PhD FRCOphth PGDipCatRef

I’m Alex Shortt, a highly trained academic researcher and Consultant Ophthalmic Surgeon based in London’s famous Harley Street medical district. I trained and worked as a consultant for 14 years at London’s Moorfields Eye Hospital. I specialise in advanced technologies for correcting vision, including cataract surgery, implantable contact lenses and laser vision correction.

Learn more about me
Go to Top