Implantable contact lens is latest vision aid

• Approved in September by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, this form of refractive eye surgery may prove the next hot trend.
• But don't run over to your neighborhood eye clinic to sign up just yet.
• The implantable lens, also known as the implantable contact lens, isn't for everyone and is so new some specialists haven't yet been trained in the procedure.
• "But I don't see it as ever being a large part of a refractive surgery practice."
• In fact the implantable lens is for people with moderate to severe nearsightedness (myopia), especially those not even state-of-the-art LASIK can help.
• Until four months ago, Waldman, 19, was so nearsighted that without glasses or contacts he barely could see the big "E" at the top of an eye chart, and could read a book only by holding it at the tip of his nose.
• Neither Waldman nor his Mom ever dreamed that his vision today would be sharp, and without spectacles or contacts.
• Implantable lenses were pretty much Waldman's last hope, as his myopia was too extreme for LASIK.
• It's called a phakic IOL, a term that means the eye still has its natural crystalline lens.
• Wendy Harris, 46, a Canadian living in Rancho Cucamonga with her husband, had Verisyse phakic IOLs implanted at TLC's Ontario clinic to correct severe myopia.
• "When you do any of these procedures it takes a while to incorporate it into your practice," explained Dr. Francisco J. Pabalan, a refractive eye surgeon with clinics in Riverside and Moreno Valley.
• Nonetheless, doctors at UCLA don't plan to use it once they soon launch their own IOL implant program, said Dr. Rex Hamilton, director of the refractive surgery center at the Jules Stein Eye Institute in Los Angeles.