Golf & Vision
Getting ready for TPC: The Players Championship
Golfers face unique challenges which include vision, analysis, foresight and coordination at all distances and also in varying degrees of lighting (depending on what mother nature dishes out for the day)
Eye surgery to decrease dependence on glasses or contact lenses and also to enhance existing vision fall under a specialty called Refractive Surgery or Vision Corrective Surgery. Lasik, cataract, astigmatism, nearsightedness as well as farsightedness surgery are all different kinds of refractive surgery.
Recent advances have raised the bar on vision correction as follows:
1. Advanced Diagnostics for Vision Surgery:
Pentacam technology can work like a CT scan or MRI of the eye’s visual system, thus analyzing the optics and surgical choice therein. We can also catch abnormal eyes in patients who are poor candidates and should avail of other options.
Optec 6500 is a vision testing system that goes beyond the vision chart in the eye doctor’s office. We can test vision in 12 tests and also simulate what one individual sees in similar condition compared to another individual, for example we can show how a patient who is 20/20 in the day time could have vision challenges while driving at night or while playing golf.
2. Advanced LASIK surgery
Today, with advanced Lasers, automated eye tracking and safety mechanisms we can correct vision beyond 20/20 by treating a patient’s individual vision abnormalities called higher order aberrations using wavefronts to individualize each patient’s vision goal.
Corneoplastique™ Laser techniques have become a new generation, super specialty by raising the bar on Lasik to perform the entire spectrum of Lasik Laser surgeries as an ART instead of the “cookie-cutter” surgeries performed by majority of lasik surgeons worldwide.
Patients who were not considered candidates before can now avail of these advanced laser vision procedures and see without glasses and contact lenses.
3. Cataract surgery
Cataract surgery itself has undergone a revolution. Since cataract surgery involves the use of an artificial lens implant, these lens implants itself have been advanced to include the ability to see the distance as well as read without any glasses.
Such multifocal / progressive (similar to reading glasses / bifocals) lens implants are providing vision without glasses or contact lenses and changing lives and lifestyles universally.
4. Combination of Cataract & Lasik surgery
Cataract surgery can now be planned as two stages. Following cataract surgery, patients can undergo Lasik surgery to correct any residual astigmatism to thus completely fix the optics of the eyes for a glasses-free vision experience for life.
Even patients who have undergone previous cataract surgery and did not have a choice of these advanced, multifocal / progressive lens implants at that time can now avail of Lasik surgery to help them get rid of glasses altogether.
Age is no barrier; Art Boutwell, an avid golfer at age 90, may go down in history books as the oldest person ever to undergo LASIK surgery. Today, he is back in the swing of things. With his new 20/20 vision, he’s playing golf daily. “Dr. Gulani’s advanced LASIK surgery was like night and day,” He said. “I can see to read the newspaper again.”
Kenny Knox had talked to eye surgeons across the country before deciding Gulani was the best. A pro golfer since 1978, Knox attests he was back on the course two days following his surgery.
“From the moment you walk into his institute and he approaches with that warm smile and graceful handshake, you know you’re in the presence of a star,” said Hunter Chiles of Fernandina Beach, who came to Gulani to correct LASIK surgery that he had undergone in the past with another eye surgeon. “I’ve never met anyone like him before in my life,” said Chiles. “I flew my son down here from Michigan to get LASIK. I wouldn’t let anyone but Gulani touch him.”
“He corrected my vision to better than 20/20. Now, when I’m out on the golf course, It’s amazing. I can see a tiny ball 1.62 inches in diameter from 250 yards away!”
Golfers could gain an added edge over their competition as we raise the bar on vision with improved quality and penetration of vision senses that will truly epitomize “Super Vision”