How is your vision after Cataract Surgery?

[orbitnw]

How is your vision after Cataract Surgery?
Please specify whether you got a monofocal or multifocal/accommodative IOL.

I would like to know what distances you are able to see clearly. What distances are slightly blurry, but acceptable, and what distances are just unbearably blurry.

I am particularly interested in those who have received Monofocal IOL set to Distance but I would also really appreciate hearing those experiences with different IOLs. I have heard from several people that with a IOL Set to Distance, they are still able to use the Computer at about 18 inches. This has confused me since I had thought IOL set to distance makes intermediate distance blurry.

Thanks!

[reelmccoy]

It's been a little over a week since cataract surgery on my left eye. The target distance was less than I had figured which I would classify as more near than intermediate. I guess I was figuring more on my "arm's length" vs normal. :) They were targeting 18" and nearly got that. Last week's follow-up had me seeing 20/25-20/30 with correction which is better than this eye has  ever been my entire life with a best correction of 20/70. I'm pretty happy with the results as are the doctors involved. I can sit much further back than 4-6" away from the monitor. I can also see the dashboard & center console in my car again.

The right eye is scheduled in another two weeks and they're going to try and target a little further out.  I could tell the wheels were turning in the doc's mind when he mentioned my right eye had a bit of a cone shape to it so the capsulorhexis will be a little more challenging.

The only complications were from anesthesia. I was put fully under and coming out of it had me groggy for a bit. Other than that, I don't know why I was worrying so much about and I'm REALLY looking forward to the right eye getting done!

[Nancyand]

I'm having cataract surgery this coming Thursday with Toric implant in my right eye and will have the left eye done probably within one month.  I'd like to hear more experiences with toric lenses.  I work in accounting and have been very near-sighted all my life.  I'm having my vision set to distance, so I'm hoping my vision with reading glasses will be good. Otherwise, I guess there could be trouble.

Thx,

Nancy

[SoftwareDeveloper]

re: "and only need readers for near"

The older multifocals were bifocals with  adds that targeted near and had lower quality intermediate vision. Just this year the US has approved lower add multifocals from both Tecnis and Alcon that do a better job of intermediate vision, while still leaving decent near with just a small chance of needing readers.  The Symfony (if you go outside the US) is a better bet for excellent distance&intermediate with a slight chance of needing readers for near. Trifocals (not available in the US)  give good vision at all three ranges, with perhaps not quite as good intermediate as the Symfony but very near might be better. There are a few models of trifocal, the Zeiss AT Lisa Tri and the Finevision trifocal are the most common (generally rated as being comparable, with some sources giving one or the other a slight edge in different ways depending on the patient), with major vendor Alcon just having gotten approval a few weeks ago for the Panoptix trifocal that I haven't seen any data on yet to see how it compares.


re: "Please tell us about your Symfony experience?"

I've already posted about that in perhaps too much detail in a thread here:

http://www.medhelp.org/posts/Eye-Care/my-Symfony-IOL-results-after-cataract-surgery/show/2425258

Your profile indicates you are in the US (which hasn't yet approved the Symfony). If you aren't going to go outside the US, there is a thread here by someone who received the new Tecnis +2.75D lens:

http://www.medhelp.org/posts/Eye-Care/Tecnis-275D-MF-IOL-Experience/show/2597910

He is one  of the rare people bothered by halos with the low add lens (which can happen even with a monofocal) but they may go away with time, often they disappear in the first few months for those who have them initially. Although the Tecnis lenses seem to be better in certain ways than the AcrySof Restor lenses (less chromatic aberration for instance) I just recently saw a video indicating that the new Acrysof +2.5D low add lens has a different design than the Acrysof +3D lens and isn't merely a different lens power:

http://www.healio.com/ophthalmology/refractive-surgery/news/online/%7B543dce4e-252f-4ad9-821d-30961b045e35%7D/video-speaker-discusses-acrysof-iq-restor-25-iol
" VIDEO: Speaker discusses AcrySof IQ ReSTOR 2.5 IOL"

Halos may be less of an issue with that design than with the +3. That video shows   simulated halos, but unfortunately the only Tecnis lens they show   is the +4 and not the low add Tecnis lenses. That is the only simulation of halos I recall seeing comparing the Restor and Tecnis showing the sort of difference I see there (though it may be I hadn't paid enough attention to the halo descriptions of those lenses  in the past, I think its more that they usually aren't shown).

[tomyd]

ty, I will be discussing this with my surgeon on Thursday

[CBCT]

I highly encourage you to experiment with trial lenses and then contact lenses that simulate your proposed outcome.  That way you will be able to determine your tolerance for monovision or mini monovision. Best wishes.

[tomyd]

A little background, I enjoyed good vision all my life without glasses until my 40's when presbyopia set in...went to progressively stronger readers to the point where I was wearing +1.25 for driving, +2.25 for intermediate, and doubling them up for near. In the past 6 mos the left eye developed cataracts so I met with the surgeon today. I have healthy eyes and negligible astigmatism, so from my research, I thought the crystalens might be right for me. When it came to q&a, I quickly learned  he no longer implants CL, says he doesn't think they work, and all he does is monofocal or Restor, in fact he ran a clinical trial for restor in the past. I hadn't researched restor and was ill prepared to discuss them.

My objective is good far vision (driving w/out glasses), and good intermediate (computer, smart phone), I'd be ecstatic if I could accomplish this and only need readers for near...not sure how best to accomplish this yet, a second opinion will be next. Problem is, most of the forum discussion on iol's seems to be from myop's, Would love to learn more from some hyperop's experience....? With readers, I'm more comfortable undercorrected, as soon as I approach overcorrection, it gets uncomfortable.

Thanks for all the great info shared here.