Correct your sight while you sleep
by Katherine Barker

A Bristol optician is the first in the city to offer a treatment to coreect short-sightedness while patients sleep.

Turners Opticians in Fishponds Road has launched the Ortho K system as an alternative to laser surgery.

The treatment, which is fully reversible, works by adjusting the size of the cornea overnight so patients can see clearly without contact lenses of glasses during the day.

Optometrist Peter Turner said: “The treatment reshapes the cornea by less that a hair’s width to its correct position, thereby providing 20/20 vision.

“The technology to do this has been around since the 1960s but it has not been widely availbale because it was expensive to produce the lenses and time-consuming for the optician to prescribe.

“Now modern technology allows the optician to take detailed topographical maps of each eye’s cornea and email these to a contact lens laboratory in Hastings, where tailor-made lenses are produced for each eye.

“Super gas-permeable lenses are worn overnight, during which time they gently correct the shape of the window of the eye.

“In the morning they are removed, leaving the patient with perfect vision. The sight correction generally lasts for the entire day – sometimes longer, with some patients only needing to wear the Ortho K lenses every other noght.”

Ortho K costs between £20 and £30 a month – similar to wearing conventional daily disposable contact lenses Mr Turner said: “The treatment is particularly benficial for sportsmen and women, those who work in dusty conditions and existing soft contact lens wearers who suffer from dry eyes.”

“In reality, anyone who has a prescription of no more than -4.50 dioptres and an astigmatism of no more than -1.50 diptres is likely to benefit from Ortho K.”

The treatment is already popular in Holland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Austrailia, and can also be used by children as the effects are fully reversible.