For more than 24 years, board-certified ophthalmologist, Mitchell A. Jackson, M.D., has combined patient-centered care with innovative procedures that have significantly improved vision for thousands of patients. He has specialized in offering personalized lifestyle assessment and advanced options in cataract lens replacement, LASIK, contact lens implant, corneal transplants, corneal crosslinking, dry eye disease and specialized glaucoma treatment. His newest groundbreaking procedure, KAMRA Reading Vision, eliminates the need for reading glasses.
“I knew I wanted to be an ophthalmologist almost my entire life,” says Dr. Jackson, the founder and medical director of Jacksoneye. It might seem strange that a young boy knows he wants to operate on eyes when most of his classmates are targeting a career in baseball or police work.
The history of Dr. Jackson’s journey to become an ophthalmologist started at an early age. When his dad was 8 years old, he was living in Scotland, and an outbreak of meningitis ravaged the country. His father was left blind in one eye as a result of the bacterial meningitis affecting his optic nerve. Since there was no treatment 70 years ago, a young Dr. Jackson was determined to find a cure to treat his father’s blindness. His passion to find new cures for eye diseases is the reason why his research through clinical studies significantly contributes to the advancement of eye research. “Though still no cure exists for my father, we are getting closer to that reality and many others for those suffering from eye diseases.”
The California transplant and father of three grew up in Sherman Oaks in Los Angeles and moved to Chicago to attend Chicago Medical School after his undergraduate studies and completed his ophthalmology residency at the University of Chicago Hospitals. He’s been in northern Illinois ever since.
The KAMRA inlay, this latest procedure Dr. Jackson and Jacksoneye have added to his list of offerings, is a procedure that corrects near vision in patients as they age that requires the need for reading glasses. Jacksoneye was the second commercial launch site for the technology in the state of Illinois, which received FDA approval only one year ago in the United States (though 20,000 patients worldwide have had the procedure). The Wall Street Journal and Good Morning America recently featured stories on the KAMRA technology and its ability to rid people of the need for reading glasses.
After age 40, adults often develop blurry reading vision as the result of a natural eye condition called presbyopia. While reading glasses are a quick and easy way to correct presbyopia, they are a major inconvenience for patients who constantly switch between taking them on and off. Plus, some patients would prefer another option that makes them look as young as they feel. “Imagine you can’t see anything up close: your watch, your food, your phone,” says Dr. Jackson. “These things are part of everyday life and to not see them is very debilitating. It’s really a handicap.”
The inlay is the solution patients have been waiting for because it is completely compatible with other laser surgery options. “We finally have the bridge for treating presbyopia in patients that thought they would be rid of their glasses for life after having LASIK or PRK years ago,” he says. “If they begin to have blurry reading as they age, KAMRA will allow them to stay glasses-free forever.”
The KAMRA corneal inlay works exactly like a camera, giving an expanded depth of focus or full range of vision (distance, intermediate and near). The inlay is only 3.8 mm in size with a central 1.6 mm aperture. It’s only 5 microns thick (that’s about one-tenth the thickness of a human hair strand). The inlay is placed in the non-dominant eye, but both eyes retain distance vision and near vision capability. “This technology is not monovision, where one eye is for distance vision the opposite eye is for near vision,” says
Dr. Jackson. The procedure only takes about 20 minutes, and patients are able to go home afterwards. It’s changing the lives of patients who need reading glasses the same way Lasik changed lives 20 years ago when it was first introduced to the market.
“We give people options to meet their lifestyles,” says Dr. Jackson. The surgery for vision correction might differ for someone who drives a truck late at night versus someone who’s really active in sports or someone else who’s a teacher. “We do a very extensive diagnostic testing for each patient—four to six machines for each evaluation. Just because your neighbor had a certain procedure doesn’t mean you should have the same one; each patient’s evaluation is customized,” he adds.
Dr. Jackson’s reputation precedes him. He’s an industry speaker, consultant, and advisory member on various boards. Dr. Jackson has published dozens of original research articles and has given many academic lectures internationally. He’s been named a “Top Doctor” in Chicago, was selected as an OSN Top Refractive Surgeon in the U.S. and as a Premier Surgeon Top 250. In addition, to those commitments, he’s seeing patients four days a week in his office for consultations, and he’s in surgery one or two days every week. But he enjoys every minute of it.
“I was given a great gift, he says. “I find it gratifying to positively impact the sense of sight, to make a lifelong difference in how a person sees, and to greatly improve a person’s quality of life. I am excited to work in this challenging specialty with rapid advances offering the best surgical technology and ocular pharmaceuticals.”
This post was sponsored by Jacksoneye. It is located at 300 N. Milwaukee Avenue (Route 83) in Lake Villa, myjacksoneye.com, 847-356-0700.
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