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Eye Care Archive (Expert Forum)
HamiltonGuy Cataract Surgery Update
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HamiltonGuy Cataract Surgery Update
by HamiltonGuy, Dec 06, 2006 12:00AM
I have posted before under "Restor/ReZoom/Monofocal" I'm 45, cataracts in both eyes - the left non-dominant eye was worse. For those wrestling with the decision of what Type of IOL, I'll offer you my experience with my decision to go monofocal. I had the left-eye cataract surgery yesterday, and met with the doctor this morning. I finally chose the monofocal over the rezoom / restor options. My doctor went with the AMO Tecnis foldable acrylic IOL ZA9003. Diopter 17.5.
Day 1: When they took that bandage off my left eye, I was amazed at the colors. There is great contrast between objects – and everything is very bright. Now the cataract in my right eye is so obvious. The eye that was my “good” eye now appears cloudy and dull – like I’m looking through Vaseline. I am amazed I could drive at all.
The focusing issue is a problem though. It’s only one day after the surgery, so I know that it will improve, but It’s a little unsettling. With the new left eye, everything up close and intermediate is very out of focus. Reading is not possible without 2.00 - 3.00 reading glasses. Things at about 12-25 ft away are perfect though. Objects farther away are slightly out of focus. It reminds me of putting on glasses that are slightly too strong. If it doesn’t markedly improve, I’ll be a bit disappointed – but we’ll see.
So it’s strange having one eye that is focused but cloudy, and one eye that is crystal clear, but blurry. Indeed, it feels strange/unbalanced. I’m going to work tomorrow, and I worry about the computer work, I’ll keep you posted on progress, if forum has interest
Day 1: When they took that bandage off my left eye, I was amazed at the colors. There is great contrast between objects – and everything is very bright. Now the cataract in my right eye is so obvious. The eye that was my “good” eye now appears cloudy and dull – like I’m looking through Vaseline. I am amazed I could drive at all.
The focusing issue is a problem though. It’s only one day after the surgery, so I know that it will improve, but It’s a little unsettling. With the new left eye, everything up close and intermediate is very out of focus. Reading is not possible without 2.00 - 3.00 reading glasses. Things at about 12-25 ft away are perfect though. Objects farther away are slightly out of focus. It reminds me of putting on glasses that are slightly too strong. If it doesn’t markedly improve, I’ll be a bit disappointed – but we’ll see.
So it’s strange having one eye that is focused but cloudy, and one eye that is crystal clear, but blurry. Indeed, it feels strange/unbalanced. I’m going to work tomorrow, and I worry about the computer work, I’ll keep you posted on progress, if forum has interest
Doctor's Answer
I'll be curious to know whether you notice any improvement in your night vision as a result of your aspheric IOLs after your second eye is done.
JodieJ, I have read many of your posts and want to thank you for sharing your experiences here; are you in the Chicago area? If so, can you share what doctor you are using that has given you such great reaults, that is, 20/20 distance vision? I have been through an original cataract procedure and a subsequent exchange because of an erroneous power calculation. I am just glad that neither procedure has blinded me but consider my cataract surgery experience extremely disappointing and emotionally draining to say the least. How satisfied are you with the bifocal contact lens? Do they compromise your distance vision for driving? Are you a confident night driver? Do you still need reading glasses?
I plan to get some glasses today even if I only need them for a few weeks until my refraction stabilizes; 20/60 is not great driving vision and has left me very disappointed as this is my dominant eye.
I tried sample bifocal disposal contacts, but my distance vision was better without them and my near/intermediate vision was mediocre at best. So I was eager to pay the $300 for Triton soft bifocals by Gelflex Labs. The top part of these contacts is for distance and the bottom is for near/intermediate vision. I had no problem using the computer with these lenses, and I was able to read the smallest print. Unfortunately, I've already managed to lose a lens, which apparently managed to fall out of my eye (and with a plano distance portion the loss went unnoticed.) So it'll be $150 and about two weeks before I have a replacement. If you're interested in the contacts, try one of the search engines and/or call the toll free number 866-GELFLEX for names of providers.
Castle-Connolly (www.castleconnolly.com) has a whole book listing "best doctors" in Chicago. Doctors are included based on peer nominations, among other criteria. Last year a friend of mine was horrified to learn that I intended to have eye muscle surgery with a doctor whose name I had found in a Castle-Connolly book at the library. So he offered to get recommendations for eye muscle surgeons from a "big-name" ophthalmologist he knew personally. The three docs recommended (which included my surgeon) were all listed in Castle-Connolly. For a reasonable fee, you can access their entire data base at their website. I've always had excellent results with Castle-Connolly doctors, and using the listing gives me the sense of having the same info as medical "insiders."
HamiltonGuy, I hope you don't mind me jumping into your thread. I did want to pick up on the point you raised about possible disappointment in cataract surgery because that is an area where I have much to say.
I think I would be less disappointed about the 20/60 vision if this was not my dominant eye and instead was my weaker eye that I did consider correcting for near and intermediate, before deciding I wanted to correct both eyes for distance. I don't like the idea of reversing dominance at all. I may look into a piggyback to try for the third time to get closer to plano. For me, my current vision is not a bad monovision result as the first doctor aimed for plano and "corrected" me to 20/200, which was basically no range of vision and highly unacceptable.
This forum has helped a great deal as I don't know any peers dealing with cataract surgery issues. The advice I would give to anyone planning monofocal cataract surgery is to aim for plano because you may get unexpected monovision anyway. It is also possible that I am such an unusual case that no one else will have my problems.
If anyone here has had experience with progressive glasses and is reading this, please comment.
For me, progressive glasses are so much better than those drug store readers (which are always too big for my face and look very geeky on me). You don't have to keep taking them off and putting them on, and you have good vision at all distances. I discovered the Triton bifocal contacts through online research and convinced my optometrist to get a trial set. BTW, I didn't get a response from the Gelflex website, but they were very nice and informative when I called their toll free number.
After reading some of the recent posts from people experiencing severe and uncorrectable visual aberrations post cataract