Long term dizziness after cataract surgery.
Posted , 12 users are following.
Hello, I am new to the group. My eye doctor has mentioned that I will need cataract surgery soon but my present concern is for my mom. My 83 year old mom had cataract surgery roughly 10 years ago and although her vision has been very good 20/30 she immediately had an issue with what she calls "dizziness". She describes it as her "equilibrium is off.....a spatial type problem". Even after 10 years she still has the problem that she describes has been getting worse. She says it happened right after the surgery. Her eye doctor had checked her out and she has had MRI's and neurological appointments with specialists and she checks out fine. We are thankful that her vision is good but are concerned about this "dizziniess" problem. It appears that this happens primarily when she moves her head. When her head is still, it appears that the problem is not as much. She can drive without any issue and does not have a problem walking (no fear of falling). Has anyone had or heard of this problem happening to anyone else after cataract surgery and if so, what was done to manage or cure the issue? Thank you!
0 likes, 21 replies
Sue.An2 john753
Posted
Sent a link through private message. Hopefully something can be done to help your mom.
kyle33489 john753
Posted
I have a symptoms similar to your mom. I'm 6 months in and just had an IOL put in my left eye. I'm only 41 and my right eye still has good vision and doesn't need done. I've been told it's because I only have an IOL in one eye and the difference between my two eyes is what makes everything feel off. Did your mom have both eyes done? What type of ILO's did she receive?
john753
Edited
Hello and thanks for your response. My mom has had both eyes done about 10 years ago. Immediately after the cataract surgery she started having the symtoms (dizziness, equilibrium off etc...). To this day she still has the problem and it seems to be getting worse.
john753
Edited
I forgot to mention that my mom had the standard cataract surgery...not the monovision, multi-vision ect...
(sorry if my wording is incorrect on the type of surgery)
Iguana john753
Edited
Hi John,
Sorry to hear that your mom is experiencing this problem. I to had cataract surgery, one year ago and developed dizziness the following day. I would describe it as my equilibrium being off. It feels like my brain and eyes are not working together. In addition I developed light sensitivity and neither of these issues have not gotten any better since my surgery. I have been seen my several ophthalmologists, a neuro- ophthalmologist and a cornea specialist. Also had an MRI which was normal. I am now looking for a top-notch ophthalmologist to see. I had the YAG procedure done about three months after my surgery, so lens replacement is not an option. How is your mom doing, has she made any progress?
matthew92144 john753
Edited
Hi John, my 87 year old mother had both her eyes done in July and August of last year. She Still has an unstable feeling and describes it as being drunk or being on a boat or a feeling that her head isn't attached to her body.
It has affected her quality of life substantially. I have had all sorts of tests done without any answers. MRI, Vestibular Balance tests, cardiologist, etc... She has an appointment to see her eye surgeon this week but I'm loosing hope for her...
Has anyone given you any answers? Is your mom still feeling unsteady?? I did read one article that mentioned gow elderly people sometimes have trouble adjusting to the new lenses but that was it. Nothing about how or if it can be corrected. I'm at my last straw and was even considering acupuncture as a last ditch effort.
RonAKA matthew92144
Posted
What type of vision did you mother have before cataract surgery? Was she wearing glasses for distance, and if so what power of lenses did she have? Has she had eyeglasses prescribed now that the surgery is done? What power of lenses are they now? The reason I ask is that some can have trouble adjusting to their new vision if it is significantly different than what they had before.
matthew92144 RonAKA
Posted
She needed glasses for both far and near. Her initial doctor for the visit for new glasses once the two surgeries were done was very fast and I felt rushed her. So I then took her to my optometrist who went very slow and was very patient with her. She did tweak the prescription a tiny bit and gave her wider lenses to help have the progressive area on her glasses not be so large and in her main vision area but that did not help. My initial feeling was that it was due to progressive lenses but she has had progressive bifocals all her life so I couldn't understand why suddenly it would cause problems. She still needs a bifocal lens because she has very slight onset of macular degeneration which makes her vision a bit blurry no matter what they do and her distance was not brought up to 20/20 after the surgery.
RonAKA matthew92144
Posted
You may want to consider a couple of pairs of full lens correction eyeglasses. For close these may be just OTC readers, or some prescription ones. And for distance like TV, a pair of distance only glasses rather than progressive, might work best.
matthew92144 RonAKA
Posted
That's not a bad idea. All I know is I hope I can get to the bottom of this soon because it really sucks to see how dejected and hopeless she feels. She went from someone who went to senior yoga and bowled and went for one mile walks around the park to doing nothing.
matthew92144 RonAKA
Posted
Thanks for the reply
RonAKA matthew92144
Edited
You may want to meet with her optometrist and compare what her vision correction was prior to cataracts compared to what it is now with IOLs. If there has been a significant change that may be contributing to her awareness that something is different. If astigmatism was involved sometimes a change in the astigmatism can be disorienting.
judith93585 john753
Edited
I had my second cataract surgery 2 months ago and have experienced dizziness since that time. Two weeks after this surgery I fell for no obvious reason. I'd very much appreciate hearing from anyone who has experienced the same with any possible treatments for this condition.
RonAKA judith93585
Edited
Dizziness can have many different causes. I would suggest going to see your GP for a diagnosis of what may be causing it. Is it happening at any particular time, such as when standing up. That would suggest low blood pressure issues. Do you have glasses which fully correct your vision to plano? Does it happen when wearing glasses? But, seeing a doctor would be your best bet to narrow down the potential cause.
maura04015 judith93585
Posted
I agree with checking for other causes than the cataract surgery as RonAKA advised and has been done for John753's mother. After all what if the onset of some other problem was coincidentally at the same time? Just as an example, some years ago I started having incidences where after sitting a while, when I went to stand, my knees would collapse, and not every time. Needless to say, my knees initially got all the attention; after all they'd each been hyper-extended several times in the past, but after more investigation what it turned out to be was a severe B12 deficiency, what used to be called pernicious anemia.
judith93585 RonAKA
Edited
Thanks for your concern and suggestions. Here are titles to a few professionally oriented items I found online, such as Dizziness Post Cataract Surgery, Postoperative Balance Issues Following Cataract Surgery, and Can Cataract Surgery Cause Double Vision, Dizziness, or Loss of Balance in case anyone might be interested.