I'm still a little confused by your description of what you had. In this situation, the best I can come up with is that you had a very large refractive power difference between the eyes that was so large that glasses were not really an option unless one eye was left very much undercorrected for the sake of avoiding terrible double vision and headaches. The natural solution in that situation is usually a contact lens which could easily balance things out. Since you could not wear contact lenses, the surgeon recommended a phakic IOL as a way to balance out the eyes - which is one possible approach to the situation. I cannot make any comment on whether is was right for your particular case since I am not your physician. It does sound like you are still having some balance issues so the surgery may not have gone as planned, I'm guessing. You should get a second opinion from another ophthalmologist in your area who can review your actual records, examine you and give you some advice.
Michael Kutryb, MD
Kutryb Eye Institute
Titusville, FL
Edgewater, FL
Refractive surgery, as a general rule, will not give you vision that you could not get with glasses or contact lenses. So if you had poor vision with glasses in the eye with amblyopia, then you would at best, have vision similar to what you had with glasses. Now on the positive side, you might be able to get rid of very thick and bothersome glasses and go to sometimes not glasses or at least thinner glasses. Surgery cannot correct amblyopia in adults but it can make the refractive error less so your glasse prescription would be less but the end best possible vision with or without glasses would be the same. There can be other benefits sometimes however like better balance between the eyes and the ability to wear thinnner glasses and sometimes no glasses.
Michael Kutryb, MD
Kutryb Eye Institute
Titusville, FL
Edgewater, FL
A related discussion,
amblyopia was started.
Thank you for your answer. Your description of my case is wright. If the
glasses with a 100% correction for the amblyopic eye (-8.00) would had give me terrible double vision and headaches if I weared them, is there a chance
that the IOL to give me similar simptoms ? I wonder if my double vision is
normal and if it is, when it should begin improving? How long should I
wait to realise if IOL was a good choice for me? I guess there is a maximum time allowed for vision to recover (1,2..4 ? months), and if the vision is not ok after this period, a decision can be made.
Left eye: -1.00 (correction: glasses of -0.75); Right eye: -8.00 (correction: -8.00 Phakic IOL)
Thank you very much!
Thank you so much for you reply, it was helpfull ! If I don't ask for too much I would have another question.. You are saying that my vision after IOL can't be other than it was before, when the correction was made by glasses. The fact is that before IOL, my glasses had the following diopters : for the right eye: the glasses had a refractive power of -2.5 lens for an eye that has -8 diopters - this was the maximum diopter possible for correction with glasses because of my anisometropic amblyopia ; I tried to wear contact lenses but I could't stand them (they should have a -8 refractive power for this eye). For the right eye I had a -0.75 diopter at my glasses and the eye has -1 diopters. So now the IOL give me a correction of -8 instead of only -2.5, as I was used to all my life. I't a difference of 5.5 diopters that I have to get used to, and it was very hard till now (and it still is after 3 weeks) to accept this new vision but I'm optimistic to belive that I'll be able to see normal at some point in the near future I hope.
I couldn't find too many informations on the internet about anisometropic amblyopia in adults so I would appreciate a lot if you could give me some advices related to my situation. Thank you so much!