Cataract lens replacement surgery

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Ritterskoop
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Cataract lens replacement surgery

#1 Post by Ritterskoop » Sat Mar 30, 2019 6:32 pm

I may have said this already, but I am both sad and angry about what I gave up for this. I want you to know what you're getting into if you contemplate it yourself.

I was nearsighted for 50 years, and both near-and far-sighted for 15 after LASIK.

Now, after surgery, the new plastic lenses in my eyes are for distance, which means I don't need glasses for movies and driving and, we will find out soon enough, seeing a baseball game. So it is not all bad.

But my friends, the books, they are up close.

When you read for a living, and cannot get the prescriptions right for up close or for computer distance, life is not optimal. I am feeling sorry for myself, because had I known, I would have stayed where I was, and simply given up driving at night (the glare was intolerable, is why we did this).

I wish the surgeon had offered me choices of lenses, or that I had known to ask about such. I paid $7000 for both eyes, and feel worse off than before.

I will try again on the prescription. I resent that they are asking me which lens is better. I feel like the science should have made this process objective by now - why can't they measure my eyes, and tell me what the numbers are? What is this business about "which is better, 1 or 2?" They should be telling me which is better. They are the ones with the measuring instruments. Now, it feels like if the prescription is making my eyes and neck hurt, it is my fault for choosing the wrong 1 or 2.

I hope you get what you want when your time comes.
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Re: Cataract lens replacement surgery

#2 Post by Beebs52 » Sat Mar 30, 2019 6:51 pm

I am sorry you're going through this. Eye stuff is just so...yeesh. My brother has had retinal weird surgery and I cringe. The glasses part I guess is still not perfect sciency. Sucks. I have made my agreement with transitions.
Well, then

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Re: Cataract lens replacement surgery

#3 Post by Ritterskoop » Sat Mar 30, 2019 7:09 pm

Hated the transitions, hated the bifocals. Always felt like something was wrong. I'm fine with a pair of glasses for reading and another for computer - I just want them to be right. I'm calling Monday, and will write down my complaints. When I say them out loud, I get angry and teary.
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Re: Cataract lens replacement surgery

#4 Post by Beebs52 » Sat Mar 30, 2019 7:14 pm

Ritterskoop wrote:Hated the transitions, hated the bifocals. Always felt like something was wrong. I'm fine with a pair of glasses for reading and another for computer - I just want them to be right. I'm calling Monday, and will write down my complaints. When I say them out loud, I get angry and teary.
That's why writing them is good. Then you have backup for the anger and tears.
Well, then

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Re: Cataract lens replacement surgery

#5 Post by Estonut » Sat Mar 30, 2019 7:15 pm

Skoop, how long ago were your surgeries? My mom had hers done in October and November 2017. IIRC, they specifically put a different type of lens in each eye, with the hope/expectation that her brain would learn how to process the information coming from each. Also, the healing/improvement can take up to 6 months. I don't know if that's because of her age or if that's "normal" healing.
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Re: Cataract lens replacement surgery

#6 Post by tlynn78 » Sat Mar 30, 2019 7:53 pm

Skoop, I'm sorry your going through this.
To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead. -Thomas Paine
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Re: Cataract lens replacement surgery

#7 Post by Ritterskoop » Sat Mar 30, 2019 8:05 pm

I guess it is right at a year. The first 8-9 months were under one set of glasses, and then in December I got a new prescription. I don't know anything about astigmatism, but I couldn't understand how it could go from 1.05 to 1.50 between May and December. Or the other way around. That is a huge difference.

It's why I get so made about the "1 or 2" questions. They led us to this place, where none of it is right.
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Re: Cataract lens replacement surgery

#8 Post by ghostjmf » Sat Mar 30, 2019 11:23 pm

My astigmatism is why I don't want plastic lenses. I don't know why they can't correct for astigmatism with the implanted lenses, but currently they can't..

For people without astigmatism there's a way to implant the plastic lens so your eye's muscles can partially focus it, but not with astigmatism.

Astigmatism means that the curvature of your eyeball top to bottom is different than its curvature side to side. Like its halves of two different spheres fitted together.

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Re: Cataract lens replacement surgery

#9 Post by Estonut » Sun Mar 31, 2019 2:19 am

ghostjmf wrote:My astigmatism is why I don't want plastic lenses. I don't know why they can't correct for astigmatism with the implanted lenses, but currently they can't.
Yes, they can.
ghostjmf wrote:For people without astigmatism there's a way to implant the plastic lens so your eye's muscles can partially focus it, but not with astigmatism.
Not true. With most surgeries, the new lens is implanted into the existing lens capsule, which is attached to the muscles that focus the eye. Whether or not the lens capsule is retained has to do with how advanced the cataract has become, not other conditions in the eye, such as astigmatism.
ghostjmf wrote:Astigmatism means that the curvature of your eyeball top to bottom is different than its curvature side to side. Like its halves of two different spheres fitted together
Astigmatism means an abnormal or irregular curvature of either the cornea and/or the lens.
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Re: Cataract lens replacement surgery

#10 Post by ghostjmf » Sun Mar 31, 2019 6:12 am

Estonut: Please reference the articles you've read that say what you claim.

I did leave out the "bumpy surface of eye" kind of astigmatism in my explanation. Most people don't have that kind. From my reading, not recent, it can only be corrected with a cintact lens. The contact's surface is smooth, & fluid fills in behind it.

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Re: Cataract lens replacement surgery

#11 Post by Estonut » Sun Mar 31, 2019 7:29 am

ghostjmf wrote:Estonut: Please reference the articles you've read that say what you claim.
Do you mean "link to?" I already did. My second and third statements have links built into them. That's why they appear underlined.
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Re: Cataract lens replacement surgery

#12 Post by BackInTex » Sun Mar 31, 2019 8:41 am

Skoop, I'm sorry you are going through this but thanks for sharing.
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Re: Cataract lens replacement surgery

#13 Post by Bob Juch » Sun Mar 31, 2019 8:51 am

I have graduated focus lenses in my glasses. They work very well for distance, computer, and reading. Yes, they're expensive; my last pair cost about $650. You get what you pay for.
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Re: Cataract lens replacement surgery

#14 Post by mellytu74 » Sun Mar 31, 2019 1:51 pm

Skoop - I am so sorry you are going through this. It stinks to high heaven frontwards and backwards.

I am glad, however, that you posted this because it is something that I might be going through shortly. So, I appreciate the warning.

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Re: Cataract lens replacement surgery

#15 Post by T_Bone0806 » Sun Mar 31, 2019 4:08 pm

sad to see you are going through this, my friend.
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Re: Cataract lens replacement surgery

#16 Post by Ritterskoop » Sun Mar 31, 2019 6:07 pm

I just five minutes ago discovered HD lenses, which use real science and scanners to measure your eye. The article warns they will cost 25-30% more, which is NOTHING when you are having headaches.

I will let y'all know how this goes but there is hope!

https://www.allaboutvision.com/lenses/w ... lenses.htm
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Re: Cataract lens replacement surgery

#17 Post by Bob Juch » Sun Mar 31, 2019 7:54 pm

Ritterskoop wrote:I just five minutes ago discovered HD lenses, which use real science and scanners to measure your eye. The article warns they will cost 25-30% more, which is NOTHING when you are having headaches.

I will let y'all know how this goes but there is hope!

https://www.allaboutvision.com/lenses/w ... lenses.htm
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Re: Cataract lens replacement surgery

#18 Post by ghostjmf » Sun Mar 31, 2019 9:27 pm

By the way, all hard contacts correct astigmatism, by that "form a perfect sphere segment, fluid fills in behind" explanation.

But soft contacts just glue themselves to your eye, no space for fluid to fill.

So they make specially shaped soft contacts that have to be inserted with "top up". Didn't work for me at sll.

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Re: Cataract lens replacement surgery

#19 Post by SportsFan68 » Sun Mar 31, 2019 10:15 pm

Thanks for this, Skoop. Other than thicker lenses, I expect not to have optic changes except for something like straightforward surgery for cataracts. Here's hoping, anyway.

Good luck with the new lenses, hope they work for you.
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Re: Cataract lens replacement surgery

#20 Post by Ritterskoop » Mon Apr 01, 2019 11:38 am

Doc says if you are having bad dry eye on a day they do the exam, it can affect which lenses you choose because you are working harder to whatever in that eye. We will do a fresh exam later this week, with some artificial tears earlier that day plus 4 glasses of water, to make sure that isn't a factor.

She says we don't need any newfangled lenses; we just need to get the numbers right. Also, last time, I saw her partner and this time I am making sure to see her.
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Re: Cataract lens replacement surgery

#21 Post by ghostjmf » Tue Apr 02, 2019 12:47 pm

A recent article on correcting astigmatism during or after cataract surgery.

https://www.aao.org/eye-health/ask-opht ... stigmatism

I don't know if you had toric lenses (described in the quoted article) inserted, Ritterskoop. I don't have a lot of faith because if they're not inserted with exactly the right orientation, you'll still have astigmatism. Just a diff orientation of astigmatism than you previously had.

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Re: Cataract lens replacement surgery

#22 Post by Estonut » Tue Apr 02, 2019 7:41 pm

ghostjmf wrote:I don't have a lot of faith because if they're not inserted with exactly the right orientation, you'll still have astigmatism. Just a diff orientation of astigmatism than you previously had.
If you don't have faith in correct lens orientation, you should NOT be letting that surgeon cut into your eye.
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Re: Cataract lens replacement surgery

#23 Post by ghostjmf » Wed Apr 03, 2019 8:39 am

Estonut::

With a lot of things medical, the body operated on will correct for small surgical errors. Not on the eye, apparently.

Its why I asked Ritterskoop whether the lenses she had inserted were toric (shaped so that they were supposed to correct astigmatism, which the article points out weren't offered until recently. More recently than I had previously read up on it.).

I had tried toric soft contacts, & they didn't work for me, despite my doctors' (med students in my case) insistence they *should* work. I only later found out about that "every time you blink they move slightly" thing later.

And my 1st & only pair of hard contacts that fit comfortably were stolen by the guys who grabbed my purse out of my bike basket as I rode by.

Eventually, those of us with cataracts will have to have our lenses replaced. If we want to *see*, & we all do. I hope cataract-reversing drugs are developed instead; there's been *some* work on that (drugs developed from blueberries!) but they're not there yet.

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