Bad Monovision result- dizzy, nauseated need options

Thank you! I wish I had that information. My optometrist won't tell me until I hit the 6 week mark. I got the numbers I posted from the tech who was trying to help me balance out my eyes with contacts. Now they won't tell me. All they will say is my eyes are still healing and we'll check them again in April. Grrrrrr. Visiting surgeon again at the end of March. Will hopefully find out from him. I'll post when I have the numbers!

It is too bad that the optometrist won't tell you your exact eye prescription!

What was the prescription of the glasses which you tried? Your saying that, "Can't seem to wear glasses unless both lenses have the same power. Monovision just doesn't seem to work well with glasses" implies that you have tried at least 2 different versions of glasses. Please remember that those are not the only 2 choices. There is a middle choice between those two extreme choices. Assuming that your astigmatism is low (which will affect the best choice) and the spherical corrections for distance vision are -0.5 for the right eye and -1.75 for the left eye (as you mentioned), I would suggest trying -0.25 for the right eye and -1.00 for the left eye. This will give you a difference of -0.75 of glasses power between the 2 eyes, which is less than 1 diopter difference recommended to avoid double vision. You will also have a difference of only 0.5 diopter between the 2 eyes when wearing such glasses (-0.25 adjusted value for the right eye and -0.75 adjusted value for the left eye), which is much easier for the brain to adjust to compared with the 1.25 diopter difference which you now have without the glasses.

Obviously your eye is still adjusting and the prescription may have changed since your last vision check. So, you should get it checked again, if desired, to get the best combination at this time. The vision may change a little more over the next month or so, but having to get new glasses in a month may be a better option than having to suffer with bad vision during that time.

Thank you so much for this information.  I am only guessing on what my numbers are based on what the tech told me a couple of appointments ago.  So I have been playing with contacts and lenses in my kids old glasses.  Wow.  I didn't realize you couldn't go above about about 1.0 diopter difference in lenses without getting double vision.  That makes so much sense based on what I was experiencing while experimenting with things that would make me feel better.  I will give your suggestion a try.  My eyes just don't want to do contacts.  I was beginning to despair I might not be able to do glasses either.  This sound very reasonable.  Thanks again!

Yarrrrrt!!!! I like that idea! Thank you! It's good to hear that someone else has experienced what I am experiencing. This gives me hope. I'm ready to just have them rip my eyeball out! I hear you on the diet plan. It's one way to lose weight for sure! How long before you gained balance in your eyes? (If I might ask)

I got enough balance that things are ok in about 5-6 weeks. I still have a smidge of double vision now, but it is due to debris in my eye that is floating around, which would definitely not be your problem. (my lens capsule collapsed during surgery, so it is floating around in my eye right now -- they are looking to possibly laser it, but we're trying patience to see if it floats down out of view)

I totally hear the "rip my eyeball out" feeling. I felt that way for a good 3 weeks after having complications. Once I started wearing the eye patch and readjusted my expectations -- vision WILL improve, it just might be longer than you expected -- I started to feel better. 

I am more frustrated by the lack of empathy and help with the mental adjusting to having complications than the actual complications. Because nobody gave me answers, and I had to do a TONNE of online research, I had to come to my own conclusions. I try not to scare people with my "story," but I figure if some people dont have information they are just scared and hurt like I was. 

I'm so sorry you had complications during your surgery.  I totally agree about lack of help and information.  I've loved my optometrist but have lost some respect for him through this process.  Some counseling on expectations and help with adjusting afterward would have helped me to not be so panicked and anxiety ridden.  My feeling is they are just trying to appease me and get me out the door. It is such a relief to hear your stories and gather ideas.  I have hope!  My optometrist just says; "well things are healing nicely.  We are within the margins of error so that's a good result".  Huh?  Wish I could blink and take a picture with my eyes right now.  Thank you thank you.  You have been so helpful.  Blessings and continued healing

At this stage, it does not really matter, but I still wish that your optometrist was more open to giving you the full information about you eye prescription,

Obviously, you have significant astigmatism in one or both eyes. Otherwise, using 0.5 d lens will improve your distant vision, but will not make any difference at all in your nausea or vertigo symptoms between wearing these new glasses and not wearing any glasses. (not wearing glasses is the same as having both eyeglass lenses at the same power of zero). Will be interested in knowing your complete prescription when you get it.

I was a -8.0 in my non-dominant eye and a -8.25 in my dominant eye.  No corneal astigmatism.  I ended up with some astigmatism in my non-dominant eye after the surgery but they won't tell me how much yet.  So frustrating.  I know very little about all of this.  I have tried contacts in many different combinations from .25 to 1.0 but have not tried one at full correction in my left eye and none with astigmatism correction.  I tried glasses at 1.0d with astigmatism correction in the left with the dominant eye corrected to plano and couldn't handle the astigmatism add. Those glasses made my eyes completely wonky - instant nausea.   I've found relief (but no great vision) with lenses at the same diopter value.  All combinations of contacts make my eyes feel like they are pulling inward and my brain and eyes get extremely stressed within 30 minutes.  Have no idea why. I used to wear monovision contacts at a -1.0d and progressive bifocals both of which I loved.  I did a trial of monovision at -1.5d after my first eye was done and loved it.  I had no hesitation.  I am learning that glasses do not equal contacts and contacts do not equal implants.  

I think my dominant eye might be a little worse than -.5d now but can't be sure.  I secretly wish my right eye would continue to degrade bringing my two eye closer together.  I would go back to my progressive bifocals in a heart beat. 

Do you have the prescription for the glasses that corrected the astigmatism to see what they say, or did the surgeon's office provide the glasses I guess so you didn't get it?

If you had no astigmatism in the past, it is possible that if you have astigmatism now that it is the issue since some people seem to have trouble adapting to astigmatism correction, even of tiny amounts, when they've never had it before.  It may be unfortunately that its taking time to adapt to both the astigmatism, and to its correction.

I'm saying this partly from a little bit of experience with a trivial amount of astigmatism in one eye postop.

  I always wore spherical contact lenses  before cataracts, I was a high myope, but almost no corneal astigmatism. I must have had some lenticular astigmatism even before cataracts since I think backup glasses at times had some astigmatism correction (despite the cornea not having much), but I never recall having any problems adapting to that preop, perhaps because the cylinder correction was minor compared to the spherical correction. I had a different experience postop. 

I  had too little astigmatism to correct during surgery,   at my last postop one eye had 0D cylinder and the other  had a trivial -0.25D cylinder in one eye.  Although I have excellent uncorrected distance vision postop, 20/15 (at least, they didn't have a line below that to check), when I decided to get new sunglasses with a lighter tint, even though I have a trivial prescription, I decided out of curiosity to see if I'd even notice a difference with the prescription, or if I did to see what even  better vision might be like since online I could get a pair of dirt cheap prescription sunglasses.

The prescription is  only +0.5D in one eye, -0.25D -0.25D X 127 in the other. I didn't even stop to think I'd have trouble adapting to such a tiny prescription, compared to high prescription  glasses preop. Yet even that trivial astigmatism correction led to a pulling sensation in that eye and eye strain headache and trouble adapting, which I expected to go away quickly, but it didn't (and I tried a cheap pair from another vendor which match, so I'm sure they were made to the right prescription). I'm still trying to adapt a couple of weeks later by wearing them a bit longer each day. Its puzzling why such a tiny astigmatism correction would be hard to adapt to. Its likely not worth the effort since I have great vision already, its just become an experiment I'm curious about to see. It sounds like from research that the brain should be able to adapt to having the astigmatism corrected part of the time, and not corrected the rest.

btw I'll note that its possible you had more corneal astigmatism preop than you realize, depending on how they measured it. It used to be that they relied only on their usual corneal scanners that measured the front of the eye, the anterior corneal astigmatism. They assumed the astigmatism from the rest of the cornea was tiny enough to ignore, but then discovered a few years ago that the residual astigmatism they were seeing in some cases could be explained by posterior corneal astigmatism. There is equipment now to measure that, but not all surgeons have upgraded to measuring total corneal astigmatism, and I think there is some question regarding the accuracy of some of the new equipment. 

The surgical incisions can induce astigmatism, but they are usually tiny enough using modern techniques that it isn't much. If you had even a tiny bit of astigmatism beforehand the more careful surgeons   see if they could plan the incisions to offset that, but I'm not sure if they all bother or if its always possible to locate them to do so.

Such great information. You lovely people are a wealth of knowledge. My doctor won't know what hit him. Thank you. As you said, they just gave me the glasses. I have no idea why they are so protective of the numbers. Maybe their worried I'll get mad. I'm considering switching optometrists. I'll see if I can find an old prescription.