Q: I am 20 years old and I am staying in Bangalore. I have short eyesight since birth. When I was 7 years old, I consulted a doctor at Narayana Netralaya Bangalore. My left eye was 0.75 and my right eye was -7 with 4 cylindrical power. When I did some exercises with the help of the machine, within a year my right eye decreased to -5 with 3 cylindrical power and my left eye to 0.25. Then she recommended me semi-soft contact lenses. Then with increasing age, my power too started to increase. Some months back, I decided to have lasik and visited Narayana Netralaya. Then my power was -13 with 5 cylindrical power in my right and 1.25 in my left eyes so he said that my right eye power is too high, we cannot eliminate this power but it can be reduced to around -3 to -4 with 2 cylindrical power and he said that if I am not satisfied then I should wait for 2 to 3 years. Their will be many more equipment invented by that time to eliminate the power. He recommended me toric lenses which are comfortable. My question is can my right eye gain normal vision or are there some equipment to be invented in near future to eliminate eye powers If yes how much time will it take?

A:You have a condition called anisometropia, (a difference in power between the two eyes) which is fairly common and you have no need to worry as long as you are wearing prescribed glasses for the correction. Myopia generally tends to increase and stabilise when you have reached around 18-20 years of age. Correcting your entire number with LASIK surgery would depend on certain other factors like corneal thickness and pupil diameter and until we know these details it is not possible to comment as to how much power would be residual in the right eye after LASIK. Your doctor is right about the use of toric lenses and we advise you to continue with them if you are comfortable. Some of the newer Excimer Lasers such as the VISX Star S4 Laser, removes much less tissue than earlier lasers and is very helpful in high numbers such as yours. Maybe it would be possible to correct nearly most of your right eye number with this laser. You are advised to contact your eye specialist for details regarding this.