Carmel Matteson was severely farsighted nearly her entire life. The interior designer, whose Culver City store called Designers' Bloopers was featured on Oprah Winfrey's show, has worn thick eyeglasses since age 6. As an adult her hyperopia required plus-5 diopter lenses.

 Recently, Carmel decided to do something about her poor eyesight. After much research, she made an appointment with the Maloney Vision Institute where she met Drs. Robert Maloney and Uday Devgan. Dr. Devgan, Los Angeles LASIK, MVI's cataract and lens specialist, advised Carmel about a number of new surgical options popular among baby boomers whose already-poor eyesight has worsened with age.

Carmel decided to undergo a 10-minute, painless lens-exchange procedure. Every day she appreciates the newfound freedom of her sharp unaided vision.

"It's fabulous," Carmel said. "Just recently I was slicing some tomatoes and was thinking that when I wore glasses I would have to push them up my nose or bring them a little further down so I could sort of try judging with the knife. And here I'm making all these nice slices and they're all equal. I could never have done that before."

There are many Los Angeles vision correction options, all of which center around the two main focusing structures of the eye: the cornea and the lens, Dr. Devgan says. The cornea is the outer clear tissue over the center of the eye whose shape and focusing ability can be optimized with procedures such as LASIK - what most people think of as "laser eye surgery."

While Los Angeles LASIK eye surgery is an excellent option for many patients, there are other choices for patients with high degrees of correction and for patients who wish to restore their reading vision as well, said Dr. Devgan. Dr. Devgan also serves as Chief of Ophthalmology at Olive View - UCLA Medical Center and as Assistant Clinical Professor, teaching techniques of ocular surgery to aspiring ophthalmologists.

The human eye has a lens, much like a camera lens, located behind the colored blue, green, hazel or brown iris. The shape of this lens changes with age. In our 40s the lens starts to lose its ability to change focus for near vision, a condition called presbyopia. Consequently, we start to develop a reliance on reading glasses.

Over the next few decades, the lens changes further by developing a slowly progressive cloudiness, a condition called cataracts. Presbyopia and cataracts are normal age-related occurrences and happen to everyone.

When the cloudy vision becomes so severe that even patients with glasses cannot see well enough to drive, Dr. Devgan says, the human lens is removed and a man-made lens is implanted within the eye in a procedure called cataract surgery. Even when the patient does not have significant cataracts, the clear human lens can be exchanged for a special man-made lens. This allows patients with active lifestyles to enjoy good vision all the time. It also thwarts the development of cataracts and the significant vision disability that follows.

Due to Carmel's age, her high level of farsightedness and her desire to achieve sharp vision at all distances - near and far - without glasses, she chose the option of presbyopic lens exchange. She said she had hoped for LASIK surgery and "was disappointed" when Dr. Maloney informed her she wouldn't be a good candidate and declined to perform the LASIK procedure.

"Dr. Maloney was direct and honest. Although at the time I thought, ‘Great. I finally found the best doctor and even he says LASIK won.t work for me.' But then he said, ‘Let's see if Dr. Devgan can do anything for you.' Sure enough, it turned out to be fabulous."

Los Angeles LASIK eye surgeon, Dr. Devgan explains that many patients like Carmel use the lens-exchange surgery to correct all aspects of their vision difficulties, including severe nearsightedness, astigmatism and even presbyopia. The surgery is performed in less than 10 minutes with local anesthesia of the eye. So, while the patient is awake, there is no sensation or pain. The entire procedure typically involves no needles, stitches or bleeding.

Visual recovery is quick, with most patients enjoying sharp vision a day later. Surgery on the second eye is scheduled a week or two later. The man-made lens that was optimized for Carmel's visual needs and ocular condition was the multi-focal ReZoom lens from Advanced Medical Optics, a well-known Santa Ana, Calif., company.

Carmel was told her whole life that one of her eyes was lazy or amblyopic. As a +5 hyperope, she wore Coke-bottle thick glasses before her surgery. After her procedure, her vision was sharp enough for her to pass her DMV test without glasses. With both eyes together, Carmel's vision is 20/20 distance and she can read fine newsprint close up - enabling her to enjoy life without glasses and slice tomatoes like a French chef.