r/CataractSurgery

I’m having my first eye done on Thursday and it will be a week until I have my second eye done. I am very nearsighted (contacts -8.5) so I have no idea how I am going to work it for the week between surgeries.

The key reason for me getting the surgery is because I can no longer tolerate contacts. The cataracts are mild. And I don’t think you’re supposed to wear them that close to surgery anyways. So what did you all do? Do I punch out the glass in the eye that has been fixed? Or squint a lot?

My first world concern is that I’m going to the Bruno Mars concert on the weekend and it would be nice be able to see!

My son is 5 years old and had cataract surgery about 6 months ago after an eye injury from a Nerf gun accident. It completely changed everything for us in a split second. The nerf bullet hit him so fast and hard that it con-caved his lens. He just kept saying everything was blurry. We rushed him to the eye dr who sent us to a specialist. Where we learned it could only be corrected with cataract surgery.

The surgeon had explained that the plan was to slightly correct his vision in a way that may make him more farsighted and he could grow into it over time.

But today we just got confirmation that he has 20/20 vision. I honestly feel overwhelmed in the best way.

He’s doing really good now, but he will need follow-up eye surgeries around age 10 and 18 to maintain his vision long-term. (Estimated time line)

Anyway I just wanted to share a little win and some gratitude for the people in scrubs who helped us get here 🤍

Hello, I'm writing to ask for some advice of what surgery options I should consider.

I'm a 22 year old male from Ontario Canada with congenital cataracts. I've always had bad eyesight particularly with objects or text far away but struggle up close as well. I should mention part of the reason I want this surgery is because I'm a piano player and need better eyes to be able to read sheet music. My eyesight is pretty bad in general though, I can almost never read menus at restaurants. My left eye is much worse than right. She also said I have astigmatism which I don't think bothers me much, but I could get corrected.

Anyway, here's my dilemma:

The standard monofocal surgery (not sure what lens or any other info) is covered under my provinces health plan so it would be completely free. However the Dr. told me it would mean that although it improves far sight, I'd still have to wear reading glasses for anything close, and it could actually make near sight without glasses worse. She told me this is typically done for most seniors with cataracts as they are already used to needing reading glasses, have very bad vision, just want to restore quality of life, and are at the end of their life anyway so this makes sense for them.

For me however, since I'm so young, she recommended multifocal surgery with a toric lens. I need to read up on different types of lenses and surgeries but I thought I'd ask some surgeons / people who have had this surgery and may be my age in the sub to get more input. I understand this surgery would correct vision at any distance and my astigmatism. I'm leaning toward this option as investing in my most important sense as a young person doesn't seem like a waste of money, and I can see my future self regretting that I didn't go for the multifocal years down the line because of how much I'll need to spend on glasses (possibly outweighing the cost of surgery in my lifetime) and having bad near sighted vision without glasses.

Anyway, please let me know if the Dr. recommended a fitting treatment plan for me, or what you might do, any info on other lens options or surgery options are great. I still have to research pricing but it seems right now multifocal is at least 5k and monofocal is free.

Hello,

I am in my 30s and have developed cataract in my only functioning eye. I am highly myopic (-18D) and have Posterior Vitreous Detached going on from last 10 yrs. I definitely need surgery and things to go for near. I am a software engineer so lot of desk job. Its really hard derision and need advice from folks who have gone for near. How are the experiences for day to day chores post surgery. Am I taking right choice as per my life style ? want to take informed decision. Response from doctors or optometrists are also much appreciated. It will be great help.

Having surgery in 2 weeks. Suggestions on things I should do? No water on face? How did you shower & wash face? Bo mascara? How long? No lifting? Experiences???

I'm currently at the one week mark post surgery and devastated with the results. Prior to surgery I could see distance, no problem reading road signs while driving and as an IT profession I could get through a day of computer screen use without glasses and most definitely had no problem with most apps on my phone. I needed my readers for fine electronics work and reading printed material.

Fast forward to now and I have the librarian glasses necklace. I can't even make out notifications on the lock screen for my phone. Heck, even eating dinner I have to put my glasses on to see what kind of meat it is.

Apparently my cataract eye was near sighted and my non cataract eye was far. Apparently many other 55 year olds aren't so lucky and this is how I've navigated life blissfully unaware. Well, that's no longer the case.

Anyway, at my 24 hr post op I asked the doc when I would be able to see my phone again and she said never. I'm like WHAT?! She went off and said this was all explained to you and you were fine with it and stormed out of the room. WTH?

I am due to meet with her today. My goal is to get all my medical records and go find a surgeon who will sit still for more than 5 mins and explain my options at this point.

Any tips to offer here?

Has anyone done this? The existing LAL had YAG and it became pitted. So now needs to be replaced....

I'm 70% certain that a monofocal IOL would be best, but I want to do a bit more research since I have my first appointment June 4th. I have plenty of time to consider my options.

While I'd love to ditch glasses, I'm totally ok with continuing to have them. I really want to retain superb near focus ability for crafting hobbies that I hold close to my face to be able to see small details. It's not just sharpness I'm going for, it's the ability to have a large enough image size for the details to be relatively big, not just in focus.

So, with that being said, once you get used to the notion of a trifocal being inside your eye, how large are the focus zones? What I mean by that is if you're holding a cross stitch pattern 8 inches away from your face, do you see the full 6 inch hoop area in focus or just a band across the image?

I currently wear bifocals. When I look through the reading zone, I have a large area that is in focus. I see the distance zone out of focus above it, but the in focus area is still plenty large enough for a big working area.

Also, have you adapted to night halos? Do you find the loss of contrast in lower light/dusk to bother you?

Thx!

Hello - my dad is in need of cataract surgery in both eyes. It’s been hard to get a good number on out of pocket costs with the 20% Medicare coinsurance but have heard ballpark $400-700 per eye.

The question is around whether is worth it for him to get laser + toric lenses. He has astigmatism so the surgeon recommended laser as he could fix the astigmatism quite a bit and also recommend toric lenses to go all the way for astigmatism. The cost for laser would be $1250 per eye with a discoubt (normally $2k) and toric is about $400-600.

He is on the fence about laser and toric as that would really drive up his out of pocket. He only has social security income so it would be a big financial decision for him for both eyes.

Any input or experience would be greatly appreciated on the cost and post-op Vision. Thank you.

Hi all! Curious as to how people have stepped down from four times a day to three times a day for their steroids drop. Did you skip your a.m. drop, your bedtime drop, or one of the ones in the middle of the day?

Had both of my eyes done last year, and after getting my first pair of glasses I noticed a slight yellow tint. Figured it was just a blue light filter or a side effect of transitions(never had them before surgery).

Fast forward a few months I got another pair after my rx changed, didn’t opt for transitions as I hated the tint, but these also had it. My script changed slightly so I had them remade(for free thank god) but told them no coatings at all(AR, blue ight, etc). Nope, the tint is still there.

So now I’m thinking it’s somehow an artifact of the surgery, maybe the cataracts just masked it beforehand.

Even my old pairs all have a yellow tint now. The only ones that don’t are the pair of readers I wore during my healing period.

It makes the world look duller, colors are much more vibrant when I take them off. I’ll probably try contacts just to be rid of it(and progressives).

One thing I’ve noticed is that sunlight is a big factor, at night the tint isn’t nearly as strong.

The only person I know who has had cataracts where I live (near Memphis) was my brother-in-law, who was very happy with his cataract surgery. My ophthalmologist who I really trust has recommended a surgeon in his practice. Both surgeons get top reviews online and from Medicare. The difference is my brother-in-law’s surgeon only does the actual procedure. Someone else sees you before the surgery, and a third person does the follow-up. The surgeon my ophthalmologist recommended does all 3 parts himself. I’m very torn. On the one hand I do believe that the more surgeries a doctor does the better he is at it, so doing only the surgery part might really be better. On the other hand I’m not sure how important “continuity of care” is in something like this. What do you think?

My relative has some sticky lashes after almost 4 weeks of using various drops. They've been gently using gauze and sterile water on lids/lashes, which has helped some, but eyelashes are still a bit spiky with gunk--not as bad as before, but still..also looks like a bit of gauze is stuck on one eyelash, isn't really coming off.

What are people using this far out 3-4 weeks) from surgery to clean eyelashes? And when are people starting to use heated eye masks/warm compresses again after surgery ?

Hi, everyone!

Still recuperating so don't want to spend too much time online. However, just had my right eye done this morning and everything went well. (And man - that psychedelic light show, huh??)

Lens is Clareon UV IOL +12.0 D. Surgeon used the blade, not laser, so my out-of-pocket expenses were minimal.

Biggest problem I had this morning was the nice young nurse had to redo the IV twice because she had trouble finding a good vein. BUT everyone at the surgical center was super nice and made me feel very comfortable.

Now I'm just waiting for next week to get the left eye done - and now that I know what to expect it should be a LOT less stressful!

(P.S. big thanks to everyone in this subreddit for all the helpful info! I had a much better idea, going in, what to expect than I would have otherwise!)

Surgeons orders post op were no heavy lifting, no physical exertion, and no dirty/dusty environments. That doesn’t leave much for me.

I hit the 1 week mark yesterday and have a checkup later today. I really need to see, ha literally, if this has impacted my ability to enjoy long bike rides.

Is it within expectations they’ll banish me from the couch?

A question for those who have gotten light adjustable lenses: how many adjustments did it take before your vision got dialed in?

I have had five adjustment visits and my vision is still materially worse than it was before I began this process. I am also starting to get the feeling that my doctor is flailing a bit and doesn’t really have a good sense of how to fix things.

Obviously, this is about my eyes so the fact that he is starting to seem confused is very worrying. Would love some feedback on the experience others have had.

Has anyone had to have their light adjustable lenses removed and replace replaced with standard or extended depth of focus lenses? If so, how did you handle the money side of this with your doctor?

Hi, everyone. I've already had my left eye set for distance and have my other cataract surgery in about a month. I initially chose distance again, but I asked my specialist what she would do...and she said she'd go mono for herself. It has given me analysis paralysis. I have never had to wear glasses but have been using readers lately. I just don't know what to do. I would love to not have to wear glasses to use my phone, laptop, and cook, but it isn't the end of the world to me. However, I want the cripiest vision possible without the fear of feeling off or that my eyes are crossing. It's like I feel my vision might be better if both eyes match. Maybe that's stupid. Please share your experience.

Why did you go distance and not mono? Did you wear glasses prior to cataract removal? Is most of your tasks done up-close and you are still glad you went distance? Are you truly happy with the outcome? Any mono people reading and have any regrets? Is mini-mono the way to go? I know it all depends on the person. Just so hard to choose.

Has anyone used an image simulation to see what various lenses would give you as far as range and clarity? If so, was it accurate?