JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- He spent the last 10 years legally blind. Now a local man has his sight back.
Matt Spears says being blind made life tough. "If my wife was crying, sometimes I couldn't see it."
Spears was considered legally blind three months ago. Surgeries and glasses didn't help. "I mean it was pretty bad. I was going to take brail, lose my license. I couldn't work," said Spears.
But thanks to a lens, things are clear again. "As soon as he put them in, I could see," said Spears.
He had a condition called keratoconus. Basically, Dr. Brian Amitage says Spears' cornea is shaped like a cone, distorting his vision. That's why Matt now uses bigger lenses. They work slightly different. "You fill the lens up with a saline solution and patient applies it by brining it up to the eye. It actually vaults over top of the irregular surface and doesn't touch surface," said Spears.
He can walk without using a cane now and even drive a car. He was so excited just to be able to Google things on the internet. "Just little things, being able to watch television, read and see people's facial expressions," said Spears.
This condition usually crops up in the teen years or early 20's and is found in both men and women. It happens in both eyes but one eye usually starts first. The second eye can lag behind the first eye by 5 - 7 years.
