LASIK Laser Eye Surgery Articles from
Jacksonville Vision Specialist Dr. Arun Gulani

Delicate Eye Surgery Is Working Wonders
Susan D. Brandenburg, Shorelines

At age 45, Priscilla Beman, daughter of former PGA Tour Commissioner Deane Beman, has newfound vision.

Thanks to intricate eye surgery performed by a Jacksonville Southside ophthalmologist, she has gone from near total blindness to 20/40 corrected vision.

Priscilla Beman is developmentally disabled and has been visually handicapped since she was 18 months old due to the loss of vision in her right eye. When she developed keratoconus, a cone-shaped anomaly on the cornea, in her left eye, her vision became so blurred that she was virtually blind.

"Priscilla was having a very difficult time walking, to the extent that she just inched her way along," Deane Beman, of Ponte Vedra Beach, recalled recently. "She couldn't walk on even a flat surface that changed texture. When she can see, she reads quite well, at about the level of a child 7 to 9 years old. She's a good speller and she understands math. "In spite of her challenges, she is a very interesting person who watches television and has a great awareness of what's going on in the world," he said. "For her to lose sight in her one functional eye was a big problem."

In February, at the recommendation of Priscilla Beman's regular ophthalmologist, Charlie Howe, Beman took his daughter to ophthalmologist Arun Gulani's GulaniVision Institute.

Using his Scheimpflug Pentacam corneal imaging system, which he said is the only one of its kind in Northeast Florida, Gulani studied Priscilla Beman's cornea in more detail than most topography systems allow.

Using a unique approach for her condition, Gulani inserted imported corneal implants, which are plastic rings, into micro channels in her cornea. Gulani said he was able to insert the rings "into her very distorted and thin cornea."

Beman said, "In layman's terms, what Dr. Gulani did was manipulate the center of her eye by using asymmetrical rings that reshaped and repositioned the apex of the cornea. The procedure took 30 to 45 minutes and the results were startling. She now sees better without glasses than she did with the thick glasses she's worn all her life."

Priscilla Beman and her dad recently visited Gulani Vision Institute for a postsurgical exanimation. "Priscilla was all dressed up and walked in with a big grin on her face," said Gulani. It's amazing what a difference being able to see has made in the way she carries herself."

Still a visionary in the world of golf, Beman has recently been traveling between Ponte Vedra Beach and Fredericksburg, Va., the site of his new Cannon Ridge Golf Club. "Golf Digest named it the No. 1 new public golf course on the East Coast," Beman said. "And, in my book, Dr. Gulani is No. 1, too. He corrected Priscilla's vision off the charts."

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