OT vision implant LONG

I'm one who had laser surgery on both eyes at age ~43. It corrected short sightedness so glasses or contact lenses were not longer required after half a lifetime of wearing them. My improved vision was then 20/20 + 10%. Result - amazing. This then made me the same as all people with 'good eyesight' not requiring corrective lenses. However, it then means, that as we grow older, along with those folk, our eyes will gradually change requiring reading glasses at some point over the age of 50+. So that is why some of us wear glasses despite having had the surgery. But only for reading and I had maybe 10 years without needing them. Laser surgery freed my life up, I felt I had won the lottery. It also had the unexpected side result of curing my hayfever - now that confounded the specialist and the $5000 was worth it for that! For the first time I could go snorkling and see the fish. I could see the beach from the surf (I was always too nervous to go out far when you can't see the beach or your mate). I could go on.... You'll have to reveal your 'certain age' if you want constructive comment from someone in a similar postition LoL. Hugs Bronnie

My co-worker's partner had cataracts removed in their early stages. He is about 65 or 70, a lot older than you. If memory serves me right, Ernie's surgery was done one eye at a time, same day surgery, and about two weeks apart. The improvement was that his vision had gradually gotten fuzzy and until the surgery he had no clue it had gotten like that. He had successful procedures. My dad [at age 93, a lot older than older than you] had his cataract surgery in the last 10 years, same good results.

G> I just can not believe I'm needing to do this again and so soon. =A0Here = I am

I am also one that had laser surgery. I was 49, I'm 51 now. My left eye was 20/400 and my right eye was 20/200. It was to correct my failing far sightedness. Now my eyes are 20/30 and 20/20 respectively. I can see the signs when driving, the television and the captioning and not so small things without glasses. I still have to use glasses for reading, sewing, etc. I was wearing progressive lenses before.

My mom had her cataract surgery before it was worse. It helped as we have heard from every person that lives in her senior citizen building. She has other things to contend with also. Like double vision and macular degeneration. I know it is scary because it is your eyes, I was a little bit nervous about that part. You have to initial so many warnings! Even my husband who encouraged me, said he wouldn't do it. Implant... yes they implant, but it's a lens, not silicone!

Would I do it again? Yes.

A lot of my friends are older than I am, and a good many of them have had laser surgery and they are amazed at the improvement in their eye sight. If I ever need this surgery, I won't hesitate! My mom had this done a few years before she died and it really improved her vision. Barbara in SC

The only person we know who had it done is an online person, we don't know them in meatlife. She put off her cataract surgery as long as she could because they wanted to remove her lenses. By the time she resigned herself to it she had changed insurance companies and had new doctors, who wanted to do the implants. She is just thrilled with them. Her vision was very very bad because of the cataracts, and had been for some time prior to the surgery. So I am not sure how improved her vision actually is over what it was prior to the cataracts. She is just so very pleased that she can see again.

So far as the lasik surgery goes, it really does depend on how bad your vision is before they do it. My uncorrected binocular vision (how well I see with both eyes without glasses) is 20/400. They tell me that if I could scrape together the cash to have the procedure that they could only promise that they could get it to between 20/40 and 20/60, though they might be able to do better. So if I had it done I might still need glasses or contacts, but a much lighter prescription. What they do with that sort of thing is try to fix warped eyeballs so that they are the right shape again, totally different from an implant.

NightMist

My mum is 80. She has had cateracts in both eyes . They remove the lens and replace it. Sometimes you can get away with no spec after, but, depending on the lens they put in, you may still need them for reading or distance. The lens they put in is fixed, unlike your natural lenses, which have minute muscle attachments that change the aspect of the curves and alter the focus for you.

The op will be done under mild sedation and a local anesthetic. It take

20 minutes per eye. They usually do one at a time, with a healing period between them.

Himself's dad Joe is 90. He had the same op. No bother at all. He now only needs his specs for reading. He was driving again within a week of each op.

Laser surgery can deal with short sight, but many folk have other problems as well, which is why some still wear their specs. It can also only do so much: good, but not a miracle cure and not for cateracts.

One of the things you need to keep in mind is that your eyes will continue to change shape as you age. My grand father got laser eye surgery some years ago to correct his strong near-sightedness and went without glasses for a few years. But, as he continued to age, he had to get reading glasses. Even young adults with perfect eyesight often eventually move on to wearing glasses, at least for reading, as they age. Laser surgery brings you back to that perfect vision and lets you start again from there.

As far as I'm aware, the implants can be adjusted as you age by taking out liquid or putting liquid into them to adjust their size and therefore correction angles. I don't know anyone who has had them but I've read about them and they seem quite promising.

I hope that helps.

Denise

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You are all such treasures and I am profoundly grateful for your taking the time to share your experience and your encouragement. I'm sure you could tell I had exceeded general pity party level and was about to panic. 'Thank you'. Such ordinary words. How about Big sloppy Labrador wet puppy kisses? Polly

I haven't taken it personnally, but my daughter did the laser treatment and as far as I know, she doesn't wear her glasses at all. She said she couldn't feed a thing. Me? Dollor store.

Whatever you decide to do, we're here for you!

Donna in WA

Polly, my DH had cataracts removed from both eyes a couple of years ago. He would do it again in a heartbeat! He just couldn't get over how sharp and colorful everything looked! His vision had gotten so "grayish" and "foggy" so slowly over the years that he didn't even realize it had gotten so bad. The only thing that annoyed him was putting the doggone eyedrops in so many times/days! Go for it, Gal! ME-Judy

Dunno your age, but there's a series of standard changes in the eye as we age due to the eye becoming less elastic, so the muscles can't change the focus of the eye so well, and usually reading and close work become more difficult. By age 50-52. most of us have completely lost the accomodation for focus. This is called presbyopia.

(Table for reading glasses at 16" working distance, by age, for someone with perfect vision: at 40, +0.75 lenses; at 45, +1.50 lenses, by 50, +2.50 lenses).

Compensating for the loss of accomodation, the pupil gets smaller, which gives you more depth of field in bright light. (And on the not so wonderful end of things, means we need more light to read, etc.)

LASIK and similar laser eye surgeries for young people aim to reshape the cornea of the eye. Nearsighted corneas are too curved; farsighted corneas aren't curved enough, and irregularities in the surface cause astigmatism. A laser can reshape the cornea, giving you better vision without glasses, or better vision and less strong glasses.

Cataract surgery removes the lens of the eye, which has become discolored or even pretty opaque. You start seeing ghost images, glare becomes a problem (especially at night) and/or colors are less vivid, and you typically lose the ability to discriminate among shades of blue and purple.

The old style cataract surgery of my childhood removed the lens, and then you got coke-bottle-bottom glasses forever and ever, amen. Current cataract surgery removes the natural lens that's been damaged and replaces it with an intra-ocular implant (IOL), which leaves you needing regular glasses but not the coke bottle ones. They can measure the shape of your eye and choose a power of lens that gives you good distance vision, and then you wear dimestore readers for closeup. If you've got cataracts in both eyes, you may choose to have the lens in each eye set for a different distance, so you've got both closeup and distance vision without glasses. Some folks love it, some hate it, but you can test it out beforehand with contact lenses and see if you can get used to it -- some can, and love it; some can't and hate it. Since the implants are permanent, it's a good thing to know before they do it. And they can use a laser after cataract surgery to do some fine tuning for the best vision possible for you.

There are also some multifocal lenses available as IOLs. Unfortunately, they don't seem to help as much as you think they ought to.

A little more basic information:

I'd like to send you over to the usenet group sci.med.vison -- there are three very helpful pros there, (Mike Tyner, Dr. Judy and Robert Martellaro). There is also a resident loon and a bunch of his sock puppets (ignore! do not feed those threads!) and some laypeople, some quite knowledgeable. If you can stand to go back in the groups.google.com archives for sci. med.vision, there are a number of threads on cataracts and choosing lenses for implants, and what to expect, and what can go wrong and what surgery that goes right feels like.

The information above is based on the research and reading I did for my mom, who had horrible astigmatism and cataracts (and MD and a bunch of other eye stuff going on). The cataract surgery vastly improved her vision, imo. I have not experienced it for myself, though I am now into full blown presbyopia, and my eye docs say they see a slight opacification of early cataracts, but they don't bother me enough to go for surgery.

Oh yes -- they used to do cataract surgery only when you really were having a lot of trouble seeing. Current paradigm shift is to doing cataract surgery when it's gotten bad enough to bug you, but while you're still getting around ok visually, if that's what you want.

I know I'm going to sound both dumb and ungrateful but I have to ask. I've survived terms like bling, blog and Hootchie Mama. Teach me one more. When the nice eye doctor startled me with suggesting implants I'm afraid I was so surprised I didn't comprehend all that he told me. What in the Sam Hill is paradigm shift? And I sincerely do thank you for your help *and* patience. Polly

Taken directly from wikipedia: (or some such source:)): " The term "paradigm shift" has found uses in other contexts, representing the notion of a major change in a certain thought-pattern =97 a radical change in personal beliefs, complex systems or organizations, replacing the former way of thinking or organizing with a radically different way of thinking or organizing. . ."

rusty

What else was he referring to at the time he used that phrase? How far they have come in cataract surgery? The difference in you clarity of vision before and after the procedure? The attitudes of the gators in the summer time?

G> I know I'm going to sound both dumb and ungrateful but I have to ask. =A0= I've

Polly, my FIL turns 92 in a week or so. He just had the second eye 'done' and is amazed with his improved vision. He needs reading glasses, but who doesn't other than my 20-year-old son with perfect vision? 'Paradigm shift' is one of the trendy phrases that everybody now uses instead of 'a new way of thinking' so that they sound really smart. ;)

Hugs, Sunny

Thanks, Sunny. Perhaps I need a paradigm shift; it's getting awfully crowded in my little head. =) Polly

"Sunny" <

Howdy!

And there lies the difference in this discussion, having cataracts removed as opposed to having non-cataract vision surgery.

Some of us don't realize how our vision has deteriorated w/ the cataracts (we usually don't even know they're there). The haloes around lights when we're driving at night, the blurry vision when we go out in the bright sun, the foggy or gray film that slowly creeps up on us- these are good reasons for removing the cataracts. And "while we're in there", they can replace the lenses. The correction may not (probably won't) last forever; our vision continues to change throughout life.

The other type of corrective surgery many of the quilters are talking about is not (necessarily) connected to cataracts. I remember a couple of chums I'd known since childhood who had the "new" laser surgery done specifically to get rid of their glasses. They were satisfied w/ the results, and we were happy for them once we recognized them w/out their glasses. ;-> Didn't stop the growth of cataracts, tho'. Like arthritis, if we live long enough most of us will develop cataracts, sometimes not severe enough to mess with. Age isn't necessarily a deciding factor, either. I was talking to the eye doc last month (annual exam); I had lots of questions (maybe I read too much); he said cataracts can show up in our 40s & 50s, too; it's not just an "old people's problem". One other thing I learned: w/ the growing number of diabetes cases, there are more people having eye problems, the eyes will continue to change more drastically, and the docs will wait for things to kind of stabilize before doing any eye surgery. They don't rush this.

My dad had cataract surgery & joked, "I still need reading glasses and I'm still color-blind!"

Good luck!

Ragm> Polly, my DH had cataracts removed from both eyes a couple of years ago. He

Howdy!

Thanks, Kay! Great post, good info. Felt like I was back in the doc's office.

Thanks!

R/Sandy- thinking of this as a "wait & see" issue ...