Vision quest: a behind-the-scenes look at the newest ways to see clearly

It's no accident that Clark Kent hid his super blues behind glasses. Most women--Lois Lane included--think eyes are sexy. But they're also fragile. Ten years ago, poor eyesight might have condemned you to a lifetime of glasses and contacts, but not anymore. New gee-whiz gadgets like implantable telescopes and man-made retinas are giving guys the gift of superhuman sight, allowing us to see like never before. For X-ray vision, however, you'll still have to look to the comics--at least for now.

THE WORLD'S BEST EYE EXAM

If all that "Which is clearer--this lens or this one?" nonsense drives you crazy, schedule your next eye appointment with a doctor who offers "wavefront" eye exams, a new form of testing that uses Space Age technology to create a map of your eye.

Instead of asking you to choose from a variety of lenses, doctors shoot a beam of light into your eyes. When your vision is perfect, the light emerges from the eye unaltered. But if your vision needs to be corrected, the computer uses a sensor to create a precise three-dimensional map of your eyes' imperfections.

The results you get are like switching from "a standard TV to high-definition," says Daniel Durrie, M.D., an ophthalmologist in Kansas City, Mo. Although not yet covered by insurance plans, wavefront eye exams should become the standard form of vision testing within the next decade.

SUPERCOOL CONTACTS

Disposable lenses are so 1999. The newest contacts on the market--refractive lenses--are like retainers for your eyes. Instead of simply correcting vision, the lenses help temporarily reshape your cornea (the clear sheath on the surface of your eye responsible for bending light to focus images).

Patients slip in the lenses before going to bed, and while they sleep, the contacts' rigid form gently teases their eyes back into the optimal light-bending shape needed for perfect vision.

"In the morning, you remove the lenses and have good vision all day," says Barry M. Weiner, O.D., an optometrist based in Baltimore, Md. "I've had patients change overnight from 20/400, where they can't read their bedside alarm clock, to 20/20, or perfect vision," says Weiner.

The effect from the lenses generally lasts from 48 to 72 hours--the amount of time it takes for the cornea to return to its normal shape.

LASIK: THE NEXT GENERATION

The same wavefront technology being used in eye exams is also changing the face of LASIK. To perform the operation, surgeons still do a "flap and zap," cutting a corneal flap in the surface of the eye and using a laser to vaporize the tissue underneath--reshaping it to help improve your vision.

The difference now is that during wavefront-assisted LASIK surgery, physicians get a precise view of the eye's imperfections and can customize where they aim their corrective lasers. According to Ernest W. Kornmehl, M.D., medical director at Kornmehl Laser Eye Associates in Boston, patients getting wavefront-assisted LASIK are far less likely to end up with side-effects from the procedure, such as glare and haloes.

SEE THROUGH A SECOND LENS

If you're so nearsighted that not even LASIK surgery will help, you may want to consider a new, permanent alternative to contacts called intraocular lenses.

To fit patients with the lenses, doctors make a tiny incision in the eye and then place a clear, flexible silicone-based plastic lens behind the iris, or colored portion of the eye. The implant rests just above the eye's natural lens and improves its ability to focus on near and faraway objects. Like LASIK, the procedure provides almost immediate vision improvement.

Although intraocular lenses have been used for years to treat people with cataracts, a new form of the lenses for healthy eyes (called Phakic lenses) are currently awaiting approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

MAN-MADE RETINAS

In the not-too-distant future, there may be hope even for guys with the worst vision problems (probably not you if you're reading this). Researchers at Stanford University are in the midst of developing a computerized retina that could allow blind men to see again.

In most cases, blindness is the result of permanent damage to photoreceptor cells in the eye. (Think of the structures as the biological equivalent of camera film. The cells absorb light, creating an image. Once the picture "appears," it's converted into nerve signals and sent to the brain.) But since blind men's photoreceptor cells are no longer able to detect images, researchers are developing an alternative: computerized microchips that can do the seeing for you.

The light-sensitive microchips--which are implanted in the back of the eye--detect images and send signals to the brain, just like a regular retina. Artificial retinas are still in the development stage. "They're terribly exciting, but not quite ready for prime-time," says Michael F. Marmor, M.D., a professor of ophthalmology at Stanford University.