Posted on 10/09/2021 10:50:50 AM PDT by brianr10
So, I am finally going to have cataracts removed as th blurry vision has become too annoying. What has been your experience with this operation? Did you get the hard or the vision correcting lenses? Was it painful?
I had both eyes done a month apart. Do not need eye glasses any longer. At 77 I think that is wonderful. The only problem I had was coordinating the eye drops since I had the same script for each eye. The clarity and brightness were unbelievable after the surgery. Still need ‘readers’, I elected not to go that far with the surgery to get perfect 20/20.
Did both eyes, two weeks apart. Literally went from “legally blind” to 20/20 before leaving the office. Couldn’t read the larget letter.
Operation was completely painless. Ironically, about two hours of prep for a 6-minute operation.
I could have gone VA, but opted for an ophthamologist with 10,000 operations under his belt and an impeccable reputation. I recommend doing it this way.
I was told I would probably need this surgery in 2 to 4 years. Can anyone have advise on how to slow the cataract?
Had both eyes done a month apart exactly one year ago. Was not put to sleep but given some kind of stuff and eye completely numbed. Could see the whole thing...lots of orange/yellow. Completely painless! Got the cheapest Medicare lenses. Couldn’t be more pleased! Colors and details incredibly vivid..like HD/OLED. Still use glasses for reading but got DL corrective lens restriction removed. Left eye went from 20/40 to 20/25 and right from 20/100 to 20/40.
Only pain in the ass was a lot of eye drops before and after.
One of the smartest things you could do, good luck and I hope you are amazed and pleased with results. Remember...no owies!😀
A week after the operation I told them that if I had known what the difference would be, I would have paid $5,000 per eye....gladly.
I can't tell you if you will feel pain. Mine was done by a real expert who would fill up the room with patients and go at them like mass production in an auto factory.
Don't knock that. He is so good and he does spend a great deal of time preparing his patients so it is not as though he is reckless.
But my point is that I thought it was a cake walk. No pain, no problems of any kind. Yet the woman next to me was putting up a howl BEFORE the actual operation because the local anesthesia injection stings a little. You would have thought someone was gouging her eyes out.
Maybe getting an injection in my eyes for years to combat wet macular hardened me, but I don't think that was it. I think she was a cry baby.
You will find the grass is greener, the sky bluer and the world is a much more interesting place. Cataracts are so slow in developing that you don't realize how much they change things until you are rid of them and see the difference in a matter of a few hours.
I had vision correction lenses as I was very nearsighted.
I got it early, due to being on Statin (I know, I was an idiot for not listening to others).
Anyway, wound up with a lens focused for reading (books and labels) and one focused for distance. Works GREAT, as the human brain simply ‘tunes out’ the eye that is out of focus and goes with the good eye. I also have glasses for longer-term use of one capability or the other, which allow the other eye to be used (such as reading a book, or driving). Obviously you’ll go broke driving if you don’t use cheap eyeglass suppliers, like Zenni.
I had fixed lenses installed perfect distance vision, cheaters for reading.
My wife selected Panoptic lenses and had to pay $2,500 per eye. But, for the first time in her life she didn't need glasses for the spectrum of vision, close up or distance. For her it was a choice she fully endorses. Up until then, she was getting progressively more powerful new prescriptions for glasses every 6 mos. She actually reached a point where the optometrist couldn't correct any more.
Some lens respond to the eye muscle and adjust focus to distance. But my doctor told me they are prone to glare and halos at night.
I chose a fixed focus lens -- focused on long distances. This means I must wear reading glasses. But fixed focus are better for night vision.
One risk is that some lens are prone to opacification; they'll cloud over time. Then they'll have to be replaced in another surgery with new lens.
My doctor said my lens won't opacify, because they're high end Bausch & Lomb -- $7,500 per lens. He said some people opt for cheap $40 lens from China. But a high end lens shouldn't opacify.
Some lens are acrylic, some are silicon. Mine are acrylic. The doctor thought them better than silicon.
The surgery was under 10 minutes. No pain. Seeing well within a half hour, though some starburst effects when seeing light for about a day.
Blue is bluer. Eye floaters also appear sharper. I didn't see them before.
Painless. One eye first the the other a few weeks later. 20/20 ever since.
I didn’t have any anesthesia. I was awake talking to the doc. I heard the vacuum sound when he sucked the cataract out. I had the meds put in under the replacement lens so I wouldn’t have to use drops. Made for some very interesting floaters for a couple of days. But no drops every 4 hours like hubby had. I had one really bad one because of meds I was taking, they took it out. A year later they took the other. My first reaction, wow, clouds are 3D! Amazing how it changes what you see.
I had both eyes done two weeks apart a year ago. The first eye went great! However, the second eye did not go as well. Shortly after the second eye procedure I had a detached retina. A no fun surgery! Still dealing with some issues even now. I had no eye issues prior to having cataract surgery.
When that happens, you might opt for another surgery. They punch a hole in the eye sack with a laser light.
Not everyone gets it. My doctor said I will, because if you get cataracts when you're young (50 is young for cataracts), after-cataracts are certain.
And I did get them. I still see sharp in bright light, but some glare and blurrier at night. Not nearly as bad as when I had cataracts. I might opt for the after-cataract surgery, or leave as is.
I have been advised that I will need the surgery in the future, have not done it yet. There is a non-surgical option, L-Carnosine.
https://www.rejuvenation-science.com/cataract-htm
https://www.lifeextension.com/magazine/2018/1/carnosine-cataracts-and-visual-clarity
Self focusing cataract replacement lenses work very well for me. I have had them for over 10 years.
I don’t need other glasses to read, walk, drive, shoot, fly fish. My vision has gone from 20:10 to 20:20. The response from going from far vision to close vision is basically instantaneous.
After about 2-3 years, I had to go get some floaters blasted by laser. Completely painless but expensive. I was in an outpatient sitting and received Versed before and during the procedure.
Recently, my wife had floaters after her new regular lenses were put in. She didn’t need the procedure until she turned 80. Her sibling bros still have 20/10 vision and use cheaters to read.
She had the Zap the floaters by laser done at Kaiser as an outpatient procedure. Both eyes were cleared in about 15 minutes. She was un medicated and awake during the painless zapping. She used an Rx antibiotic eye drop for 5 days post procedure.
Her only restriction was not to drive for 24 hours.
Kaiser did not charge her for that visit.
She uses rx glasses for driving and watching tv. We watch about an hour a day.
She reads about a Kindle book per day and does not need reading glasses.
Not even eye drop anesthesia? My doctor gave me eyedrops which numbed my eye. My eye "went to sleep" after the surgery, and I couldn't see for about 20 minutes.
The operation and results...painless, recovery means just lie down and relax for a couple days...vision...spectacular improvement. Beige became white...colors became vivid. Amazing!!
One thing I left out is that an eventual clouding of vision some time after the surgery is common; I think this is some kind of scar tissue. It is easily remedied through a quick laser treatment.
Yeh...the eye drops...had to set a clock...
The good news: after the surgery you’ll be able to read a fly’s girlfriend’s name on their arm tatoo.
The bad news: after the surgery you’ll be able to read a fly’s girlfriend’s name on their arm tatoo.
I used that religiously for 10 years before my surgery.
I was told I had nascent cataracts at age 33. Just tiny dots that didn't affect my vision. For nearly 10 years my cataracts did not grow. Then I discovered L-Carnosine and used it religiously. For another nearly 10 years, my cataracts did not grow. Then they did, quickly over the course of a year.
Did the L-Carnosine at least slow the growth of my cataracts? I don't know. But they were nothing when I started the L-Carnosine, so they certainly didn't stop the growth.
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