What Are Vision Correcting Intraocular Lenses or IOLs?

You’ve been diagnosed with a cataract. Maybe you’ve known for a while. The telltale vision symptoms – cloudiness, blurring, and glare – have been steadily getting worse. The glasses or contact lenses you’ve been wearing most of your life for your nearsightedness, farsightedness, astigmatism, or combination of vision problems just aren’t helping. So, you and your doctor decide it is time to do something: Cataract surgery to remove the lenses in your eyes that are now clouded with cataracts and replace them with clear artificial intraocular lenses or IOLs. It is the most commonly performed surgical procedure and once it is done, your glasses will work the way they are supposed to again.

Woman with Intraocular lenses after cataract surgery

But what if you didn’t have to go back to relying on glasses to see well?

What if the artificial intraocular lenses (IOLs) used to replace your cataract lens could also improve your eyes’ ability to focus? Get rid of your nearsightedness, farsightedness, and, yes, even astigmatism? What if you could see your active lifestyle clearly in a whole new way?

That is what vision-correcting intraocular lenses are designed to do.  As with LASIK, these new lens technologies treat the vision problems you have been wearing glasses and contact for to see clearly before you developed cataracts.

It is the cataract procedure for those who want to make the most out of the life they are living…with clear vision. It is the age-old adage: Kill two birds with one stone.

Today, there are many intraocular lens options for cataract surgery including:

These lens technologies help address most vision prescriptions, with the ultimate goal of reducing or eliminating your reliance on glasses and contacts to see well. Because there are many types of vision problem profiles, your cataract surgeon will carefully analyze your vision needs to recommend the technology that is right for you and your vision.

Published November 6, 2015
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