Steven Can Finally See His Own Reflection After RLE

Living with terrible eyesight 

About the time he turned 8, it was discovered that Steve’s vision was beyond poor—it was downright lousy. The glasses saga began with dorky, heavy-duty framed lenses as thick as his little hand. The inconvenience of wearing glasses with ultra-magnification caused Steve to try lighter contact lenses after a few years.

Steve switched to solid contact lenses, which worked for a while—until he developed an allergy to them. At that point, his only option was to wear solid glasses. The problem was that the glasses were quite thick because of their magnification strength, causing the frames to slip down his nose.

“I had to leave work to adjust them, and that’s a big thing for me,” he says, referring to racing across town in mid-day traffic. “I finally said enough is enough.”

Steps toward refractive lens exchange 

During Steven’s initial consultation with Dr. Gaur for a lens implant, she noticed mild glaucoma in his right eye. Left untreated, the disease can harm the optic nerve and sometimes cause blindness. Dr. Gaur observed Steve’s right eye for a year to make sure the glaucoma did not get any worse. During that time, she prescribed eye drops to lower the pressure.

After a year of no pressure change in the eye, Dr. Gaur was ready to proceed with RLE surgery. Her first step was healing the glaucoma-ridden eye.

“I performed a canalplasty to lower the eye pressure and get him off eye drops,” she explains. “The procedure also reduces dry eyes by eliminating the drops, which can impact and decrease vision.”

Steve says he was pretty nervous in the preoperative setting. He told himself that a lot of people had already undergone the surgery, and he needed to be tougher than them.

He confided in Dr. Gaur about his nerves before the surgery. “She said, ‘Don’t worry, I got this.’ It’s gonna be okay,” says Steve, referring to the eye doctor’s can-do approach to lens replacement surgery. “That really calmed me.”

Selecting the correct lens for Steve’s eyes 

Dr. Gaur and Steve discussed the surgery's goal of correcting refractive errors. But there are multiple vision correction options — monofocal, bifocal, and multifocal IOLs. After going over his options, Steve and Dr. Gaur decided on placing a new lens in Steve’s left eye and leaving his right uncorrected with a clear lens extraction.

He would need to wear reading glasses for up-close vision while working. “We chose an Eyhance Toric IOL,” says Dr. Gaur, who was somewhat limited with her lens selection because of Steve’s mild glaucoma. “He had a refractive lens exchange to improve his vision. He did amazing, especially for someone so highly nearsighted.”

Designed with meticulous attention to detail, the Eyhance toric lenses extend the depth of focus and diminish visual disturbances such as halos, glares, or starbursts. High visual acuity is preferred among those who prioritize quality and precision in vision correction solutions.

Still lying on his back in the surgical suite, Steve looked up at the white ceiling and noticed that he could see for the first time without his glasses. After that, the miracles continued nonstop.

“My right eye cleared that night, then the left,” he remembers. “At that point, it felt like the heavens parted, and I could see everything clearly.”

In addition to the life-changing visual clarity, Steve discovered that all these years, he had been color blind. His lunch bag was blue, not black, and his gym shoes had a blue tint. On the domestic front, Steve’s wife had long complained that he failed to wipe out the tub after his shower. Lo and behold, after his refractive surgery, Steve got the tub spotless after using it.

To say that Steve is grateful to the AGEI surgical staff would be an understatement. “I never knew white was white. I only knew my version of the color,” he says. “You guys are like magicians.”

Why trust Assil Gaur Eye Institute with your refractive vision correction? 

Dr. Kerry Assil and Dr. Gaur have gained industry-wide respect for their extensive knowledge and contributions to cataract and lens exchange procedures. Their knowledge of Intraocular lenses for cataract surgery and Refractive Lens Exchange is unparalleled. AGEI eye center has assembled a team of top ophthalmologists from around the country who offer their patients the highest quality of specialist eye care in the United States.

With over 40 years of combined experience assisting patients with eye health, Drs. Assil and Gaur are among the most experienced eye surgeons in the United States. Dr. Assil has performed over 70,000 eye surgeries and authored over 100 textbook chapters and articles on RLE surgery and cataract surgery.

In addition to refractive lens exchange and cataract surgery, the ophthalmology experts at AGEI are nationally recognized for their eye care and treatment options for a full range of conditions, including eye conditions such as hyperopia glaucoma, macular degeneration, retinal detachment (and other diseases of the retina), cornea conditions, contact lens, floaters and flashes, dry eye, presbyopia, astigmatism, farsightedness, myopia, nearsightedness, and other vision correction procedures (refractive surgery) such as LASIK surgery, PRK.

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