Got my second cataract surgery today. Going to have all new eyes!

About a week after the first surgery I suddenly noticed colors were clear and bright. I think I spent that whole day just enjoying colors.

Then I accidentally ended up driving at home in a whiteout at night and observed that I was breathing normallty and my hands didn't have white knuckles.

I was reading one evening and tried reading with just my new eye and the print was incredibly crisp and clear. The unoperated eye makes everything blurry and smudged and yellowed.

So, hopefully this second operation will be as successful as the first. Now when I finally get back to traveling, it will be a whole new world.

I opted to have both eyes remain nearsighted so I only need glasses when driving. Some of my friends and family have gotten what is called "monovision" -- one eye is farsighted and one eye is nearsighted so they never need glasses. The brain makes adjustments, is the idea.

My opthamologist refused to do monovision on me and gave a lot of good reasons.

Have any of you had cataract surgery? What kind of lenses did you opt for?

I’ve not yet had to deal with cataracts but did wear mono vision contacts for several years. I didn’t have any trouble with em but my eye doctor did say a lot of people couldn’t adjust to them - easy enough to fix with contacts, cataract surgery not so much. I stopped wearing them when I started wearing graduated trifocals - vision is so good I didn’t want to wear contacts any more.

Glad the surgery worked for you!

No cataract surgery here either.

I did the monovision contacts for a while too. Took three weeks to get used to them; I was also told that a lot of people never adjust. I certainly wouldn't choose that route for cataract surgery. While a first cataract surgery is pretty straightforward, apparently it's a lot more complicated if you have to have an IOL removed and replaced with something else.

Nor would I do the multifocal, toric, or accommodative IOLs. My eye researcher friend says they see problems with those in patients who come into her university's eye clinic. They just don't work out very well for a lot of people. Her take is to do monofocal (Just corrected my error - I typed mono vision accidentally before - sorry) IOLs and then fix everything else, including astigmatism, with glasses.

I had cataract surgery with Toric lens added to reduce my extreme astigmatism, and then followed it by the monofocal lens implants surgery which did NOT help. (A bit of lasering in-between to remove scar tissue.)

The right eye (supposed to be for distance vision) is the one gone blurry - with its scary prognosis - and the left eye (supposed to be for close up) isn't so hot either. Apart from more serious deficits it leaves me at a loss in the supermarket.

Can't read the big signs identifying the aisles, and then when I want to check ingredients (I want at least, to avoid added sugar), I'm struggling too.

You two were wise to think things through more thoroughly, including the trial with contacts before going all in for the monovision surgery.

(Can't help wondering if all this mucking around with my eyes didn't have something to do with the - ugh - macular degeneration that developed. Granted it IS hereditary, but it's still a nasty suspicion.)

Well. I have had both eyes done. Weirdly, 10 years apart and by different doctors (I was influenced by my wife to try doc #2).

I need Toric lenses because of extreme astigmatism. Both eyes for far vision, so I use readers for reading and piano.

So far so good. The older lens now seems to provide less sharp vision than the newer one. But I think I will return to the first doctor in future. The second one jerked me around for extra payments beyond what Medicare and supplemental paid.

I had both eyes done in May. It’s like a miracle; I can see! Colors are amazing. The weirdest time was between surgeries, I kept checking vision between the two eyes. Nicotine haze, or brilliant color.

I was very nearsighted (20/1000 and 20/1300) before; we corrected for distance vision, monofocal lenses. I have 20/20 distance vision, and use reading glasses. I opted for progressive lenses with no correction on top, so I don’t have to monkey around putting readers on and off. But I prefer driving with no glasses at all.

I had one eye done last year. The other one is still fine (though needing progressive lenses and astigmatism correction) I got just the basic lens.

Now I can see better without glasses if I need to,(out of the new eye) but still wear glasses all the time.

Had monovision. I think it was affecting my
balance in things like skiing moguls among other things. Got one eye
corrected. Much better.
One Ophthalmologist sent me to another for cataracts. The second said they were not bad enough for surgery. They went away. Have wondered whether the eye drops I use for dry eyes dissolved them.
Cataracts are not all bad.

quote:

Originally posted by rontuner:
I had one eye done last year. The other one is still fine (though needing progressive lenses and astigmatism correction) I got just the basic lens.

Now I can see better without glasses if I need to,(out of the new eye) but still wear glasses all the time.

I couldn’t do just one eye unless I wanted to wear a contact lens in the uncorrected eye. I tried to use my glasses with one lens removed, but the difference in vision between the two eyes was too big for my brain to handle. (I think because glasses for nearsightedness makes everything smaller, and the corrected eye saw things as much larger. Dizzying. I wore a contact lens for a couple weeks between surgeries.)

No experience.

I do need readers to see up close or I'm as blind as an old dog.

Eye exam, etc. is on my to do list, right below dental work.

Glad it worked for you.

Everything looks so much brighter and clearer! I had no idea my house was so well lit.
Colors are cooler, bluer blues, whiter whites. I can read so well now, I was up very late reading last night.
Got about 30 books from the library on the way home.
No pain, just the pain of having to put multiple eye drops in four times a day for a month.

Can't wait to see what it's like to have 20/20 vision again after I get my new glasses.

Glad you’re enjoying the new color palette, piqué. It’s truly amazing, isn’t it? And yes, the regimen of eye drops is exhausting.

Cataracts drive visual artists crazy because of the color distortion. Dorothea Tanning was one who commented on it; we know some of her family.

Some of the colors of my knit samples were surprising to me after my surgeries! Luckily, the colors within the samples worked well with each other, but WHOA.

Yes, there *is* enough light in my house (it didn’t seem like it before). But the worst thing? I could see how dusty and dirty my house was, and I went on a cleaning rampage! OMG the cobwebs! Cataracts plus pandemic lockdown where people weren’t coming over equals slipshod housekeeping…

quote:

Originally posted by AdagioM:
Some of the colors of my knit samples were surprising to me after my surgeries! Luckily, the colors within the samples worked well with each other, but WHOA.

Yes, there *is* enough light in my house (it didn’t seem like it before). But the worst thing? I could see how dusty and dirty my house was, and I went on a cleaning rampage! OMG the cobwebs! Cataracts plus pandemic lockdown where people weren’t coming over equals slipshod housekeeping…

when did you have your eyes done?

ha! i never noticed any mess before, and i'm not going to start now!

quote:

Originally posted by piqué:

quote:

Originally posted by AdagioM:
Some of the colors of my knit samples were surprising to me after my surgeries! Luckily, the colors within the samples worked well with each other, but WHOA.

Yes, there *is* enough light in my house (it didn’t seem like it before). But the worst thing? I could see how dusty and dirty my house was, and I went on a cleaning rampage! OMG the cobwebs! Cataracts plus pandemic lockdown where people weren’t coming over equals slipshod housekeeping…

when did you have your eyes done?

ha! i never noticed any mess before, and i'm not going to start now!

I had them done in May, a few weeks apart. In June, the weather was bright and sunshiny, and I could see EVERYTHING in my messy house. And I wasn’t back to work yet (teaching/traveling) so I just had to clean it up.