Bath optician unveils new innovative sleep-based vision correcting technique

Sleeping off poor vision sounds like a dream, but it is exactly what Bath optician Sarah West has started to enjoy and the 29-year-old is now recommending the new innovation to local patients.

Sarah, a Dispensing Optician, decided to try an innovative form of non-surgical vision correction called Orthokeratology, known as Ortho-k, before recommending it to her patients.

She is so delighted with the ability to abandon her glasses and day time lenses that she is now recommending this to suitable patients at the practice where she works in the City centre.

Sarah, who has a prescription of -5.00 dioptres, has been short-sighted since she was ten and has worn soft daily lenses since she was 15, but found them increasingly uncomfortable.

She said: “I tend to suffer from dry eyes towards the end of the day, and I don’t like going out in glasses, so the ideal of having good vision all day without wearing lenses really appealed to me.

“When we talked about introducing Ortho-k to the practice, I thought well, I could be the guinea pig.”

Detailed topographical maps were taken in seconds of the surface of Sarah’s cornea and from these tailor-made lenses produced which she pops in at night as she goes to bed.

Overnight they gently flatten the cornea by less than half a hair’s width resulting in excellent vision for the day ahead.

“The result was brilliant, and so easy to do. My vision is stable throughout the day and I no longer have problems with dry eyes and putting in drops as the day progresses. It is so much easier when I go out in the evening too.”

Swimming has become a much more attractive sport for Sarah as the good vision means time in the pool is a lot easier.

“Everyone knows you should never swim in contact lenses because of the serious risks of infection so I used to bumble around and really avoid going swimming, but I’ll be going a lot more now.

“I would say to anyone who is having problems with soft lenses – give it a try as the difference to your lifestyle is so dramatic.  It only takes five minutes in the morning to take the lenses out and clean them and no time at all in the evening to put them in.”

Since Sarah started using Ortho-k several patients at her practice, Kathryn Anthony Opticians, have taken her lead and are now using this system to overcome problems of dry eyes for contact lens wearers, and for specs wearers who find the vision correction liberating.

Besides the lifestyle benefits, Ortho-k is now recognised by the optical profession as a means to arrest the progression of myopia in children: an increasing problem with double the number of children being found to be short-sighted compared to 50 years ago.

Sarah explained: “The research from around the world indicates that this overnight vision correction acts almost like braces on teeth and that the use of Ortho-k can, in certain cases, stop myopia progressing.

“The profession recognises that this has long-term benefits in eye health as well as vision correction.”