WATERVILLE -- Charles Perkins has been wearing eyeglasses since he was in high school.

Thanks -- perhaps ironically -- to the onset of cataracts, the Winslow man no longer needs glasses, except for reading. Two months after Dr. Peter Kohler implanted a Crystalens lens at Eye Center of Central Maine, Perkins expects that within months, he also will be able to read without glasses.

"I need to train the muscles in my eyes to flex the new lenses," Perkins said. "Healing takes a couple of months, and I'm told not to push it by not wearing glasses."

Perkins, 67, already has seen positive results. The out-of-pocket expense of about $1,900 will be worth it, he said.

"My night vision is much better without glasses," he said. "I'm just 100 percent pleased with how things have changed."

Perkins said he looks forward to boating, swimming and golfing without glasses. He's able to wear regular sunglasses for the first time in decades.

He had no choice but to remove the cataracts, which had plagued him for more than five years.

"My eyesight had declined to the point that prescriptions for new glasses wouldn't work," he said.

Kohler said Thursday he was the first in the Waterville area to offer the Crystalens implant, and has been doing so for about two years. Insurance companies pay for only the surgery, Kohler said.

Dr. Steve Witkin and Dr. James Putnam of Maine Eye Care Associates in Waterville also offer Crystalens, and other lens-replacement procedures.

So far, Kohler has done the implants for 26 patients.

"That's the biggest holdback ... the added expense," Kohler said, "but it's good for patients to know that they now have this added option."

The Food & Drug Administration approved Crystalens in 2003, Kohler said. He waited a little longer to begin the procedure at Eye Center of Central Maine.

Kohler explained that the "hinge" that supports either side of the lens is flexible, allowing the lens to move back and forth and mimic the eye's natural focusing ability.

"The standard lens implant is single-focus" for distance vision, Kohler said. "It does not help near vision for reading."

"The first version of the optic, I felt, was too small," he said.

Kohler also does Lasik surgery on the corneas of patients who simply want to do away with their glasses. Insurance companies don't cover that procedure, either for the lens or the surgery.

"A lens implant is considered elective," he said.

Most Crystalens patients no longer require glasses, although some need reading glasses for tiny print or low light levels, he said.

Larry Grard -- 861-9239

lgrard@centralmaine.com