Part 3: Reading Glasses Slow You Down

Today, in addition to her successful legal career, Susan Singleton is a busy single mother of five.

Her children range in age from 25 to eleven-year-old twin boys; while professionally she is often called to advise large companies on legal issues and conduct talks and seminars in far flung countries – she was recently working in Iran and Nigeria.

As predicted, after twenty years elapsed since the radial keratotomy procedure, Susan was back in specs … and hating it.

“I put it off as long as I could” she said, “but eventually I had to give in!”

Like everybody of a certain age (except those already enjoying blended vision), Susan was not happy with the inconvenience of reading glasses – in her hectic schedule she also found that they slowed her down and made her feel and look older.

“Everything just takes longer with glasses. Each time I wanted to read a text on my phone, I would have to hunt for my glasses in my bag (she rejected the aging trend of wearing them on a chain around her neck). When I opened the dishwasher they would steam up, they would fall off while I was gardening, and I never seemed to have them with me when it was time to read a night time story to the twins.”

They were also an inconvenience in Susan’s professional life.

As the name suggests, reading glasses become necessary for all reading and close work – so, on they have to go for computer work and digesting legal documents. Susan particularly hated the on and off yo-yo action that accompanied checking notes at conferences, giving group talks and making public speeches.

“Along with having grey hair, using reading glasses is incredibly aging”, she points out.

Happily now we can easily colour our hair and – thanks to blended vision- we can also ditch the readers.

Susan returned to the eye clinic that had successfully treated her twenty years ago; but they could only suggest the intrusive method of lens implantation which did not appeal.

Then she read about blended vision and later heard from a friend who had undergone the procedure at the London Vision Clinic.

However, because Susan’s eyes still bore the scars from the incisions made for the radial keratotomy twenty years ago, the procedure to correct her loss of focus could only be carried out with exceptional skill and highly specialised equipment. This included the Artemis Insight 100 ultrasound scanner (developed as a direct result of research by Dr Dan and a select team of LASIK surgery experts) and specialised shape based, topography guided, treatment.

Susan is thrilled with the result.

“It has made an enormous difference to my life. It makes me feel younger – I can do things more quickly.

“If you break your leg you don’t have to wear plaster and use a crutch for the rest of your life, you have the injury repaired – so why do we think of eyes differently. To continue to use glasses – when there is an alternative – would be like using a crutch for the rest of your life.”