Had Cataract Surgery Last Week

Ron,

I appreciate your reply. I do not have an eyeglass prescription for the eye operated on. When my vision on my operated eye was tested the day after surgery, it was 20/40 without any eyeglass correction. Now when I put my on my eyeglasses (which are -7.75 (left operated eye) and -9 (right un-operated eye), my vision is much worse. When I take my eyeglasses off and close my right eye and use only my left operated eye, my vision is much better that way than with my eyeglasses on. In fact, until I have my surgery, I have thought about taking my eyeglasses to an optician and having my left eyeglass lens removed and a clear plastic lens inserted and having my right eyeglass lens occluded. After my surgeon operates on both my eyes, I will either get a new eyeglasses prescription or wear readers. Does this info help you to better answer my question? Is it good I am seeing 20/40 uncorrected 6 days after cataract surgery?

For a short term solution it is best to just remove the lens from the operated eye. You may be more comfortable with a contact in the non operated eye. If you use a contact that corrects you as close as possible to distance vision in this eye it will give you a good simulation of what it would be like to get the second eye corrected to distance vision.

Ron, I don't think my right eye can be corrected anymore because my cataract is very dense, +4. The last time my vision was corrected was in April and my right eye was 20/40 then. I can tell my vision has gotten worse since then. I am going to have to wait to see how I do after cataract surgery on my right eye. So back to your first post to me: I could have my surgeon target my right eye to full distance or have it targeted closer to -2.5 for better reading vision. Those last two options are mini-monovision, right? Which would be the easiest to adjust to?

Or would the simplest thing for me is just to target my right eye for intermediate like I did my left eye and then get a new eyeglasses prescription?

They are forms of mini-monovision but different one. If you go for full distance in one eye and -1.5 D (which it seems you are close to) in the other that would be traditional mini-monovision. If your residual astigmatism is low you may be able to go eyeglasses free. And of course you have the option to get progressive eyeglasses to do a full correction as an option where you don't have good enough vision without glasses. That is essentially what I do, and almost never wear the glasses.

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The other option would be less traditional. It would be a micro monovison but set for closer vision. You almost certainly would need progressives to get good overall vision. And, you could match the two eyes, and would be in pretty much the same situation, but with a little poorer reading vision without glasses.

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But, keep in mind regardless of which way you go, you can get eyeglasses that will give you good overall vision, as a plan B.

So your Plan B would be like my third option above, that is, to have my right targeted for intermediate like I did my left eye and then get eyeglasses to fully correct my vision/astigmatism ? As I said, I am just worried I may be one of the small percentage of patients who don't adapt well to mini-monovision

I was just saying that there is always a plan B with eyeglasses. The real difference in the options is in what you see without glasses.

Ron and Jim

I saw my cataract surgeon yesterday and she gave me my Operative Notes. In the USA, the Food and Drug Administration requires that patients be given information about their IOL. Mine came with a barcode and it says' Model ZCBOO, Diopeter+15.5D, OT 13mm 0T 6mm. Can you all explain what that means? Also, my cataract surgeon said I am now seeing 20/25 and have less astigmatism. If I were to have my other eye set for near vision, as we have discussed, what do you all think the the Diopeter reading would be on that IOL? And also, based on all those numbers, would that make it more or less difficult for me to adapt to the mini-monovision?

Thanks again.

The ZCB00 is the J&J basic monofocal non toric IOL. The power of +15.5 D means that it is going to correct for myopia. If you have an eyeglass prescription of -3.0 to -3.5 D, then this lens is going to bring you back to have distance vision. However this is a very rough guess. You need to ask the surgeon what the targeted outcome is to be. For distance vision the normal target is -0.25 D. The lens has an outside diameter of 13 mm and a lens diameter of 6 mm.

I looked back and I see you have a -9.0 D eyeglass prescription in your un-operated eye? Disregard the comments in my last post. I can't make any sense of the surgeon using a +15.5 D lens in an eye with -9.0 D eyeglass prescription. You need to ask the surgeon what residual sphere power they are actually targeting. It would seem that a +15.5 D lens would leave you very myopic.

Ron,

I asked her to target me for intermediate vision in my left eye so I could see the computer and I can see it now. I can see distance rather well too. The reason I had a -9Rx was because of my very dense cataract. In fact, before my left eye was operated on, I was really seeing only from my right eye, which will be operated on Oct 12

Ron,

I mean my eyeglass Rx was -7.75 on my left eye, and I really couldn't see anything out of that eye until after the cataract was removed. My right eye (un-operated) is the one that has the -9 Rx