2 hours post-op--That was interesting
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Just had my first eye done a couple hours ago. The surgery is not bad at all. A little uncomfortable a couple times, but no pain at all. The very worst part was the bright light shining in the eye You want to close your eye SO bad to get rid of the light, and you can't. Relatively quick surgery, and the doctor seemed pleased. A pleasant surprise--he used ORA to take a measurement to confirm his lens selection. I was under the impression that he only used it for toric/premium lenses. I might get billed for it, but it was good to get the IOL power double-checked--I didn't have a great deal of faith in the tech that did the biometry.
The doctor ended up using a Tecnis ZCB00 monofocal. The eye is pretty blurry right now--nothing is in focus at all and I'm getting some rings around light sources, but hey, poor eye was stabbed and abused just a couple hours ago. The light rings are enough to make me really glad I'm getting monofocals and not a lens known for rings/spiderwebs. From watching videos I recognized the shape of the knife when he made the incision, but didn't feel anything, just saw a shadow. When he was using ultrasound to break up the lens, I could see what looked like tiny ripples in my vision (I could hear the ultrasound machine kick in concert with the ripples.) Other than that all I could see was that darn light.
Not seeing a huge difference in colors. Whites are definitely whiter. I'm getting a lot more light, but some of that may be dilation. We shall see--it's really nice to have the extra light. I could actually make out my husbands face a bit when he was backlit--all I've been able to see is a silhouette. What's fascinating is the effect that it's having on my blended vision. When I was standing outside the doctor's office waiting for my ride after surgery, I could tell that there were were brush-strokes texturing the concrete. Couldn't see them with either eye, but could see them with both. My contrast is being a little better in the unoperated eye. Everything looks like there's a softly diffused LED light (more white than incandescent) giving extra light to the world. I can't see to read at all with the new lens right now--can't even make out text on the page, but when I look at text with my unoperated eye then open the eye with the new lens, it looks like someone turned on a light and I can read more easily. The brain is an amazing thing.
0 likes, 12 replies
RonAKA lucy24197
Posted
I found it took a long time for the dilation and local anesthetic drops to wear off. What I noticed was that the eye was quite pain free until the drops wore off. At least in my case dilation of the pupil then had a fair amount of pain associated with it. Dark glasses seemed essential for the first day or two. As my surgeon said, the eye does not really like having sharp objects poked into it, and it takes a while to fully recover.
lucy24197 RonAKA
Posted
So far I've been lucky. I've been careful to wear my dark glasses out, and have mostly stayed inside out of the sun. I've had a couple twinges when I've looked at something bright, but so far so good. I'd agree with your surgeon's comment. I can tell my eye is in a major state of flux--the vision is changing pretty much constantly. Mostly for the better. Starbursts and glare are minimal, although today I may have been having flickering that so many people experience. It's seems more of a slight vibration than a light/dark thing. It comes and goes. There's also a dark semicircle right at the peripheral edge of my vision that comes and goes. The eye having a hissy fit in response to the indignities to which it's been subjected, I suppose. For one day out, considering the amount of stress the eye is subjected to, I'm very, very pleased. My vision checked out at close to 20/20 this morning and has been improving slightly all day. I'm getting more near vision all the time. I said something about near vision to the doc and he told me that I shouldn't be getting anything closer than arm's length. Right now I'm maybe a foot from my monitor, and even though it's larger text and blurry, I can make out what I'm typing. If I lean back in my chair it's blurry but easily readable at just over arm's length. What's really amazing to me is the way the brain is processing all the visual inputs. My eye with the cataract can see the text as much more in focus and sharp if I'm really close to the monitor, but it's faint--like what you'd get from a hard pencil. My eye with the new lens sees the text as BLACK. With both eyes, I'm getting almost all the sharpness from the near eye with the cataract, but the text is much darker and the background is less yellow, getting the contrast and color from the eye with the new lens, taking the best from each eye and merging it.It's far from perfect and it's tiring, but I'm blown away by what I'm seeing a little more than a day after surgery.
Pifutoast lucy24197
Posted
My eye stayed extremely dilated for the first 2 days, causing halos and star bursts and fuzziness for the first few days. plus the trauma of surgery and swelling.
Take the recommended drops religiously
Should see rapid improvement over the next few days. I was very sensitive to bright light for a couple of weeks
lucy24197
Posted
I know it's waaay too soon to be so excited, but I put up the Snellen chart and can see the 20/50 line! With clear, sharp letters. My vision had gotten so bad I couldn't make out the letters in the top row (20/100 on my chart.) As long as my retina doesn't pitch a hissy fit and everything heals ok, i'm feeling like even if the focal point changes and I need glasses all the time, my vision might be correctable so that I can SEE again. The cataract surgeons & my new optometrist were kind of iffy about my predicted results given my diabetic retinopathy.
Fortunately it was pretty overcast this morning for the ride to and from the surgical center, and I had dark glasses for the return trip. It's bright out now, so I'm hiding inside with the shades drawn. I just had to turn down the brightness on my monitor.
So far there's no problem with the eyes working together.
Keeping my fingers crossed now, but just feeling like there's hope the eye can see clearly again has me ready to dance around the room.
lucy24197
Posted
The circles around the lights collapsed into hearts in a quarter circle, and now there are just small hearts filled with starbursts with little rainbows above and below. Quite a show (although I'm really glad it seems to be winding down. I would not want to have these kind of effects for night driving.) Vision is up to 20/30. Still not a lot of near vision. My brain is having fits and no longer wants to listen to my left eye (the one that hasn't had surgery yet) because the information from the right eye is so much stronger and better quality--it's making reading difficult for now. I watched a video about some exercises to help adjust to monvision, and they seem to be helping a little. This is quite a ride. I'm surprised at how much improvement I've seen in the first day. I'm taking the drops as prescribed, although I haven't been able to hit my eye on the first few attempts each dose and am turning the chore over to the husband for now so that I don't run out. Plus they taste terrible if they run down into your mouth.
jettesun lucy24197
Posted
i'm having the same trouble with the eye drops. not wanting anyone else to touch them because paranoid about germs/infection, i've enlisted the help of my daughter to tell me when i'm holding the bottle in the correct position for the drop to fall in my eye. this is working better than trying to do it myself and have it all run down my cheek.
i'm one day in front of you, having had my first eye done early Monday morning. i had my first post-op appt yesterday midday, everything was great at the time. then in the afternoon, i started experiencing a strange shimmering effect that has continued since. hoping that this just means the lens is settling into my eye, and that it'll go away when its healed. might call Dr about it later though.
we both have the tecnis platform monofocal, but my card says DCB00. not sure what the difference is. already though, i can read my books with ease, and the smallest writing on the eye drops bottle. i'm absolutely delighted with my close-up vision. conversation with surgeon just before going into operating room, he said he was hoping to get me somewhere around -2.25, perhap a little over, but not over -2.50. we'll see where it settles. i plan to report back here when it appears to be in its permanent resting place, so others that are going for near vision over distance can have the information to help in their choice. and btw, i'm seeing Way better distance than I was before surgery. i attribute that to the absence of the cataract (which was way worse than i thought). i now wish i'd gotten this surgery done sooner, been struggling for years with increasing vision difficulties.
RonAKA jettesun
Posted
I think the ZCB00 and DCB00 may be the same basic lens but the DCB00 uses what J&J describe as the Simplicity delivery system.
jettesun RonAKA
Posted
Ron, Thank you so much for this information! I've been trying to figure this out for hours, lol! I should have checked back here sooner. I did see the part about the Simplicity device that puts it into your eye, but didn't know that constituted the difference. Almost all the data I found online was about the ZCB00.
I may possibly be a little more myopic in my operated eye than was intended. My old old glasses that are -3.00 LE are working perfectly to drive. Just before surgery, I was 2.25 in that eye, and was hoping to keep same.
lucy24197 jettesun
Posted
I might be seeing the same effect. I described it to the doctor as "pulsing" and he said it's normal, but it doesn't hurt to ask your doctor since yours might be something different. My doctor was originally going to go with an Alcon lens, but decided on Tecnis a few days before surgery. I'm really, really pleased so far with how it's going. I'm not sure if I'll have reading ability without glasses with my near eye (targeting -1.75, depending on where my first eye ends up) but since I usually settle in to read for a long time, I can use glasses for that and not taking them off and losing them every few minutes.
lucy24197
Posted
2 1/2 days post-op now. Today was a bit of a step backwards. Things were blurry this morning then gradually clearing during the day. I was very thankful that others said it's a 2-steps forward, one step back sort of thing, so I didn't have to panic. The flickering at the outside corner of my eye was pretty bad whenever I used the computer, but I just noticed that it's calmed down a lot. Still seeing a dark arc at the very outside edge of my vision, but I can pretty much ignore it. Eyelids are still pretty swollen, but my pupil seems to be back to normal size. I sure did enjoy the extra light while it was dilated.
I went outside a little while ago. It wasn't fully dark, but I was able to see a few stars. I haven't been able to see stars for several years. It was wonderful.
Something else is happening that's kind of cool. Sometimes I'll glance at the floor and it will look like it has a slight hump in it. Then it's like someone turns a knob on my vision and it flattens out. I'm not sure whether it was where I had an astigmatism before that's gone, or if it's a little worse now, but it seems that the brain is saying "Stop that, stop that! I know the floor is flat, I WILL see it as flat!" I keep thinking that this would be a dynamite science fair project for someone's grandkids--"Vision adjustment after cataract surgery."
jettesun lucy24197
Posted
Glad to know the flickering thing is normal. My doctor's office never got back to me about it. I didn't press it though, because it started waning and now is mostly gone. I don't see the arc at edge of vision as you are seeing.
Yesterday at dusk dark, I went out on my back deck, and could see the space in between the branches of the trees, 3D. Everything just looked flat before. I didn't realize I wasn't seeing in 3D, nor did I realize I wasn't seeing white. I'm still endlessly amazed at the difference between my operated eye and the one not yet done.
My pupil was already back to normal at the 1 day post-op appt, but eyelid still slightly swollen. Not bad though. They did rip a piece of skin off underneath my eye when they removed the taped-on surgical drapes. That has scabbed over but will probably take awhile to go away.
lucy24197 jettesun
Posted
I'd forgotten how the world looks when you can see trees looking like more than a silhouette. There are some huge evergreens down the street that made me do a double-take yesterday when I noticed branches and light and dark greens rather than just an outline.