Word: eyeful
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...adds another complication. Most people, as they get older, need reading glasses or bifocals for close work. This condition, called presbyopia, is different from farsightedness because it has nothing to do with the shape of the eye; it happens when the lenses in the eyes lose their ability to curve sufficiently to focus on nearby objects...
...precise etching of computer chips, it is a so-called cool laser, meaning that it can cut through almost any material without generating a lot of heat damage. That's just the kind of exacting low-impact tool surgeons needed to rework the delicate tissues of the eye. So a company called Summit Technology, of Waltham, Mass., dedicated itself to figuring out how to adapt the excimer laser to eye surgery. Today, Summit and another company, Visx, of Santa Clara, Calif., dominate the eye-laser industry...
...Eye surgeons first tried using the excimer laser to correct vision in a procedure called photorefractive keratectomy. They scaled off the cornea's outermost protective layer, or epithelium. Then they vaporized some of the underlying tissue with the laser, forcing the cornea to flatten or steepen, depending on the correction. Although the epithelium always grew back, the cornea retained its new shape. It was a big improvement over radial keratotomy, although the healing of the epithelium remained painful...
Some of these limits may change in the next decade as the technology improves. Summit recently acquired a start-up company that is working on a laser that uses radar initially developed for the Star Wars, or Strategic Defense Initiative, to track the eye during the operation. Currently doctors keep the eye steady by asking you to stare at a blinking red dot. If you suddenly shift your gaze, your surgeon can turn the laser off very quickly, but the doctor can't compensate for the small, involuntary eye movements we make all the time. These saccadic motions aren...
...watched close up on a TV monitor and said it was almost as bad as watching my caesarean. I went home, took a nap, woke up--and could see the clock across the room. At the doctor's the next day, I was seeing 20/20 with my left eye, 20/40 with my right...