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Electromechanical reshaping, an alternative to laser eye surgery
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- jacknews 1y agoThis is amazing! Let's hope it pans out for eyesight, and I'm sure there must be a whole lot of other things this could apply to.
- chronogram 1y agoThis seems ideal. The only question I had was whether it's permanent on living cells, "Potentially reversible" at the end makes me think it is.
- brians 1y agoThere’s a current product that does simple mechanical remodeling: sleep with this chunky contact lens in and the next morning you see better. But it wears off in ten hours or less.
- zikduruqe 1y agoIt's called Ortho-K https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthokeratology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthokeratology
- platelminto 1y agoNight lenses! Yeah they're pretty crazy (I'm in the process of getting them and a friend of mine has them). 10 hours is low though - they're supposed to easily make your vision last all day, even two. My friend says he only really stops seeing well after 3 nights of not wearing them.
- antisthenes 1y agoIt depends on your prescription. I tried them and they were awful for me. Didn't last the full day, caused terrible halos while driving (and that was BEFORE 90% of cars drove with LED high beams), were generally too uncomfortable.
- npongratz 1y agoSame results for me. Absolutely awful, vision consistently began failing by becoming noticeably blurry about 8 to 9 hours after taking night lenses out, and I couldn't drive at night because of headlight and streetlight halos even after "topping off" with those uncomfortable lenses during the day. As an enthusiastic night sky observer, trying to use those lenses was depressing. I gave up after extended tries with three different lenses (I think it was six to nine months total), with my highly experienced doctor consulting with different manufacturers and researchers from around the country. Turns out my pupils naturally open up too wide, made worse by corneas that apparently are not thick enough to retain the reshaping all day. These issues, incidentally, make me ineligible for the popular cut-n-burn style of eye surgery. On the bright side, it was indeed completely reversible and I've suffered no effects of any kind after about two days of non-use. That was a bit over a decade ago.
- chpatrick 1y agoI think they'll have to come up with a less scary name for it though.
- boppo1 1y agoYeah, but knowing the analagous name for lasik is 'slicing off your cornea then gluing it back on', this one is immediately more appealing.
- singularity2001 1y agoIs it even glued on I thought it just put there and sticks through adhesive forces
- serf 1y agoit's placed into a flap that is cut into corneal tissue. the flap size itself keeps the lens in place; the elasticity of the underlying tissue itself, until it heals into an encapsulation. the surgery videos of that procedure make me squeamish unlike other surgery videos. Watching an eyeball get deflated/inflated with liquid pressure from the surgeon is just un-nerving to me; not as bad as watching a glaucoma surgery -- but up there.
- benregenspan 1y agoThe place I had it done cuts the flap in one room, then has you walk (suddenly legally blind) to another room for the actual correction. A very interesting experience that cannot be adequately captured on video.
- throwway120385 1y agoThat would be a huge red flag for me. How is that even sterile or safe? What happens if you fall and need hospital care on the walk from one room to the other? Are you now blind until the hospital care is complete?
- InMice 1y agoWould anyone know could they use this to fix the glares and halos from lights at night in person's vision, I understand cannot be fixed with any technology now? Including risk of making worse by laser surgery. I only have wore glasses, i dont care about trying contacts. Its the glare with or without thats pretty bad driving at night in US
- gambiting 1y agoAs in, you have this without any eye surgery? My dad had LASIK and that gave him 20/20 vision but also what he described as horrible halos around all lights at night, to a point where he really found it difficult to drive in the dark. He had it done about 15 years ago so I wonder if the state of the art has improved in that area.
- neffy 1y agoWhen I looked into it last year, it´s still an under-acknowledged issue. The impression I formed was that it was a bit of a crapshoot - along with some bad practitioners, there didn´t seem to be much information on when and why it would or would not occur.
- selfsimilar 1y agoI think the word you're looking for is "astigmatism".
- qskousen 1y agoSounds like astigmatism, which I also have. I don't know if this procedure, unlike LASIK, can correct astigmatism. I know you said you weren't interested, but for me personally, wearing contacts (not glasses) completely fixes my astigmatism and makes it much easier to drive at night.
- InMice 1y agoOh, I wonder what about the contact lens makes it different. I should try then I suppose
- Topfi 1y agoJust for context and as this article only mentions LASIK and not other options such as (Trans-)PRK and SMILE, the majority of negative side effects one experiences post LASIK are not linked to the ablation/"carving" of the cornea, as they call it, but rather is a result of the need to sever the subbasal nerve plexus in the anterior stroma, which tends to be regenerate in a less comprehensive manner and significantly slower around the margins of the flap compared to other methods. Flaps aren't inherently dangerous either (flap detachments are very rare, even more so with modern systems that create essentially a cavity where the flap can rest in), but the difference in healing post OP is a lead cause of heightened dry eye after LASIK. Both PRK and SMILE, due to the way they work, are less likely to suffer from this, but every procedure has trade-offs naturally. With PRK, the epithelium in the area is removed and has to regrow, a process that takes a few days (to get the initial part done, full regrowth takes far longer but isn't noticeable in general). This regrowth can be both rather painful and also rob you of the "instantly perfect sight"-effect many people desire from their laser eye surgery. As the epithelium does regrow naturally however, it is less likely (both in theory and in medical literature) to lead to dry eye and other side effects in the short and long term, making it the preferred choice by many ophthalmologists when choosing such surgery for themselves. SMILE, on paper, might be able to offer the best of both worlds, but is severely more expensive than either and there is not a sufficient degree of long term research to make a definitive statement that the side effect amount and severity is comparable to PRK, simply because it is rather new. What research is out there is promising though. Overall, each option is very well tolerated, leads to major QOL improvements and we need to keep in mind that even the more common side effects one may face with LASIK may not affect everyone and still are comparably small considering other medical fields and their elective procedures. In this context, I'm very excited to see whether this method might have even fewer short and long term side effects than PRK, but like with SMILE, it may take decades to have a conclusive answer. Edit: Another thing I missed and which was not covered in the article, is the potential that this new method could be applicable to people who, because of a variety of factors, are not eligible for any ablative eye surgery. I myself was at the upper limit for Trans-PRK in regard to the severity of my Myopia and the thickness (or lack there off) of my Epithelium. In that regard, I see far more potential than just reducing already low side-effect risks further.
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- Tade0 1y agoFinally some news regarding this research. I first heard about it back in 2019 when there was an ACS panel featuring it: https://www.youtube.com/live/Dw9D7C8CpM0?si=e-KJ8J2u_oVy4RvM https://www.youtube.com/live/Dw9D7C8CpM0?si=e-KJ8J2u_oVy4RvM Originally there was a mention of developing a less invasive method of correcting a deviated septum, but I guess they went with the harder problem first. In any case I'm up for both, because while my vision is not terrible, it's slowly, but consistently getting worse, so max-twice-a-lifetime interventions like laser eye surgery won't cut it for me.
- actionfromafar 1y agohttps://phys.org/news/2019-04-molecular-surgery-reshapes-tissue-electricity.html https://phys.org/news/2019-04-molecular-surgery-reshapes-tis...
- stavros 1y agoAgreed, going from 20/10 vision to "I've given up trying to read small text 50m away" as I age over 40 doesn't affect my quality of life, but it doesn't help my self-esteem.
- jacquesm 1y agoI'm between +3 and +4 now depending on how tired I am. I used to be able to read the print on the smallest SMT packages :( And it does affect my quality of life: forget glasses? Good there goes your day until you've found a replacement. The best improvement so far has not been the glasses but a simple string to make sure I don't put them down but they stay around my neck. That has made a massive difference and it also helps when looking down (so the glasses won't fall off) and it has cut the rate at which I was losing them to zero from about one pair per month (which really was not sustainable).
- stavros 1y agoYeah :( I can still read tiny print, but only for a few seconds, and with a lot of light. Getting old sucks.
- amelius 1y agoAs we age, most of us will have to deal with farsightedness. What's the best treatment option nowadays, besides prescription glasses?
- Topfi 1y agoAs both Presbyopia and Cataracts come for us all, it is generally not advisable to do laser eye surgery once the former has set in. Both are a result of changes to the lens (and the ciliary muscles to some extend), so long term, a lens exchange, whether partially covered by (public) insurance as part of cataract surgery or as an expensive elective procedure is the only effective surgical option we have currently available. That brings me to one of my personal pet peeves which is selling pensioners that qualify for cataract surgery on an expensive, but in fact identical but privately paid for IOL. Same with selling some Myopic+Presbyopic person on laser eye surgery of any kind. At best you get a few short years out of the expense before it catches up with you or you tolerate mono, at worst you spend thousands to suddenly need reading glasses you didn't require before. Course, if you are financially solid and Presbyopia is starting, getting a high quality lens exchange can be a very neat luxury, with the added benefit of not needing Cataract surgery later in life. Do note though that artificial lenses, while incredibly advanced, still cannot accommodate as well as the real deal as of now.
- haberman 1y agoAs someone who had perfect vision until 40 but now must wear reading glasses, I am super intrigued to hear about lens exchange! When I heard that LASIK is not a solution to farsightedness, I specifically asked my eye doctor if there are other solutions for this. The only one mentioned was monovision (getting two different prescriptions for different eyes). > Do note though that artificial lenses, while incredibly advanced, still cannot accommodate as well as the real deal as of now. Cannot accommodate what as well?
- throw310822 1y ago"Eye accommodation is the eye's ability to automatically adjust its focus to maintain a clear image as the distance to an object changes. This process involves changes in the shape of the lens, the constriction of the pupil, and the convergence of the eyes. It's a reflex action that allows us to see objects clearly both near and far" (Google)
- imzadi 1y agoOne thing I am curious about is if the platinum shaping lens would be the same for everyone or is it custom made?
- msk-lywenn 1y agoI always wondered why we don't reshape eyes somewhat like we do for teeth. I guess this is coming. I can't wait to have more news about this as my severe myopia can't be treated by (most?) laser methods.
- doubled112 1y agoReshape as in grind down and fill? Or reshape as in all of them with braces? LASIK is almost the same as grind down and fille, isn't it? In the sense that the lens is a new shape when it's over. We replace lenses too. Braces are essentially forcing teeth into new positions mechanically. Once they're in those new positions, we glue on wires and wear retainers to keep them in place, often for the rest of our lives. This doesn't sound like a comfortable eye procedure.
- zokier 1y agoThere are brace equivalents for eyes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrastromal_corneal_ring_segment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrastromal_corneal_ring_segm...
- msk-lywenn 1y agoOh! I never had braces and I had no idea there was glue and wires to keep them in place. I just thought the teeth stayed there…
- PaywallBuster 1y ago> Though the next steps are planned, uncertainties in the team's scientific funding have put them on hold take my money!
- j45 1y agoThe eyewear industry might not like this.
- aatd86 1y agoSo, electrochemical ortho-K but better?
- scotty79 1y agoThat's great news. I was discouraged of laser correction when I read some research that the layer they cut off and put back on doesn't really fuse back with the rest of the eyeball. The adhesion force is if I remember correctly 8% of the original. I wouldn't want to risk accidentally rubbing off an important chunk of my corona. The other option is just to cut it off completely and shape what's underneath but that heals slower and is also not great because the top layer is not the same as what's below. I'm reading that flap detachment is very rare. It very well might be. Maybe the eye is vastly over-engineered and 8% is sufficient for most modern humans. But I'm sceptical.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- gokhan 1y agoIf it can reshape cartilage, i can imagine the queue outside of doctor's office for nose jobs.
- stevetron 1y agoI wouldn't trust it, myself. I was laying out a new circuit board design for a client when my eyesight went all wonky. It turns out I had a detached retina. Yhe first repair procedure failed. The second procedure went well. Then I got a cataract in that eye. My retina specialist sent me to a cataract specialist. The cataract specialist told me "I was allergic to laser beams" and didn't recommend cataract surgery. And also to get used to audiobooks. Like I could write program code and design GUI's by listening to audiobooks. For "fun" I read. Sometimes I write books. I put up with a 'weird' double vision and gave up driving a car. Audiobooks indeed.
- boppo1 1y agoHow horrifying. I have lattice degeneration, which makes me very nervous. What were your 'wonky' symptoms?
- conscion 1y agoWhat does any of what you wrote have to do with not trusting this new technology?
- kappi 1y agoHow did the doctor diagnose allergy to laser? So you didn't do catract surgery? Catract surgery can be done without using laser.
- Nevermark 1y agoI have keratoconus, which is where a lack of strength in my corneas has resulted in their losing their proper shapes. I have several focal points in each eye, randomly clustered together. And unfortunately, there is no correlation (or reason for a correlation) between my eyes. Imagine not being cross-eyed with two focal points, but with well over a baker's dozen. Even if I could line up one pair of points between my eyes, any improvement would be indiscernible in the mess I see. Because the focal points are clustered close together, their impact is less at a distance (it just feels hard/impossible to properly focus, like looking through very slightly warped glass), but it is devastating up close. For reading. Without help, I see so many copies of all the letters, randomly and tightly stamped all over each other, I could stare at a short line of text all day and never figure out what it said. And this after having better than 20-20 vision at all distances, for most of my life. (Fun fact: if I am in a dark room, and look at one of those tiny power-on LED lights on some media equipment with enough distance that it is basically a point, I can clearly see all my focal points - and also a dimmer curvy, spaghetti crossover mess of focal Beziers between and around them. My corneas are neither convex or concave. They are chaotic. Evil.) Fortunately, I have hard gas-permeable "scleral" contact lenses. They form a near perfect cornea for me, so when I wear them, my awesome vision and glyphs live once again. "Scleral" refers to the fact that they are wide enough to rest on the whites (sclera) of the eyes, to completely cover and fill out my lame natural corneas. So I am in pretty good if inconvenient shape. But I would absolutely love it if this new method allowed my corneas to be reshaped. Any improvement would be a big deal. (There is surgery where corneas are soaked with a binder, which is fixed with a laser, that strengthens them and stops/slows Keratoconus from getting worse. But it cannot recover what has already been lost.)
- timeforcomputer 1y agoI've heard good things about sclerals and am planning to get them. Small triple images in the left eye and triple in the right eye with a major image further away, like 3 lines on my computer screen away. It doesn't sound nearly as bad as the many images but good to hear sclerals work with worse cases!
- Nevermark 1y ago
- gethly 1y agoIn the past, people used to fix bad eyesight by walking in nature and constantly focusing on near and distant objects which forces the eye to constantly work and fix itself in some cases. People nowadays sit behind a computer screen and therefore their eyes are quite passive in the range of use and eyesight problems never get fixed naturally.
- King-Aaron 1y agoI don't think this actually fixed actual eyesight problems, at all.
- dragonwriter 1y agoIf I understand, it may have some mild effect on the impact of near- or far-sightedness (focusing exercises somewaht improve the range of distances at which you can effectively focs), and doesn't do anything for astigmatism or other vision issues.
- camillomiller 1y agoIn the past people were blind as moles and still not wearing glasses just because, and/or of course because they perceived it as something that makes you look weak. Ask all the great generation. Has nothing to do with fixing anything. Another thing would be to say that they developed less eye-sight issues because they gazed in the distance more often as kids. Still debatable, but holds more water.
- thiht 1y agoWhat a ridiculous claim. Is "bad eyesight is fake" the new "allergies/gluten intolerance/lactose intolerance/vaccines are fake"? You can’t reshape your cornea with focus exercises, that’s simply not true.
- top_sigrid 1y agoOh and in the past people had diseases whithout a vaccine and sometimes got immunity (and didn't straight up die), hence vaccines are not needed? The logic in this comment is poor.
- zenmac 1y agoInteresting article. For myopida, there is also this Ortho-K and a specialized version of it from a Canadian optometrist, where one get a K test and then they make a set of customized lens based on the test, and there are these daily exercise that one needs to do while wearing them the lens. Many testimonies claim that they corrected their vision after 6 months.
- ridgeguy 1y agoEvery time I consider LASIK or other procedures that would remove my need for glasses, I recall that in 23 years, my obligate glasses have saved each eye once. Two dead center strikes from disintegrating server cooling fan blades. I'd have lost both eyes.
- mkotlikov 1y agoI use ortho k, I exclusively sleep in my contact lenses, take them out when I wake up and enjoy 20/20 vision for 24+ hours. I don't have to sleep in them every night to maintain 20/20, but I do anyways. They are basically retainer contact lenses that reshape your cornea as you sleep. It's what's described here minus the pH change and electric potential.
- simonebrunozzi 1y agoSpeaking of eye surgery: is there anyone with specific feedback or experience with Presbyond? [0] [0]: https://www.zeiss.com/meditec/en/products/refractive-lasers/excimer-laser/presbyond.html https://www.zeiss.com/meditec/en/products/refractive-lasers/...