Residual complications - blur or smudge spots + light levels

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I've recently had cataract surgery done on each eye (the left one 12 weeks ago and the right one 8 weeks ago). I was very nearsighted, especially in the right eye, prior to surgery and also have a significant level of astigmatism in each eye. The surgeon installed standard monofocal lenses so I knew that I'd still need glasses prescribed after surgery. (Until last week when I finally got glasses from an optician, I went without glasses for several months.)  My left eye surgery went OK but my right eye has been dispiriting. For weeks, healing was excruciatingly slow and I thought that there was perhaps a surgical problem and worried myself to the point of despair ("wrong lens or its  dislocation"?, "injured eye"?, "why me"?, etc). Symptoms in my right eye included such things as minor "crinkly" areas in my field of vision (similar to seeing partially distorted letters when reading something through a piece of saran wrap); varying yet constant blur or smudge spots in my field of vision; a noticeably higher level of brightness when looking at TV with only my right eye (similar to brightness and/or contrast controls on a TV or computer monitor being turned up much too high); a very noticeably darker, shadowy light level in a darkened room at night (in my right eye compared to my left eye); a very high level of "out of focus" near vision in my right eye (exact opposite of the near-sightedness that I had in that eye before surgery) . I've been back to the ophthalmologist 4 times and he's run various tests including looking for PCO haze and closely examining the optic nerve with special equipment. He says everything checks out OK. Now that I have my glasses with progressive lenses, I can focus clearly, near and distant  -- although intermediate focus by the right eye (e.g., at a computer screen) is much less than in the left eye. However, there still persists a certain amount of the symptoms associated with a varying smudge spot in my right eye field of vision and with the issues of brightness and the night-time shadowy, darker vision in that eye. I am now wondering if these symptoms are a result of a significant floater problem resulting from the surgery?  However, the doctor said nothing about that. Alternatively, is it possible that my right eye is still "healing" from surgery after more than 2 months? If so, what does that mean? Are my right eye's varying smudge issue and the brightness/darkness issues something that will just go away on their own over time?

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3 Replies

  • Posted

    Sorry to hear of your troubles. Must be specially hard when you had a good result from the first surgery.  How about seeing another opthomologist? Maybe there is something your doctor has missed. Good luck!
  • Posted

    I have no idea, but I hope you don't mind me letting you know that I had several attempts at reading your post and gave up because of the total lack of paragraphing and the very long sentences.    

    It's great you gave so much info but I reckon you'd be more likely to get useful responses if you re-sent it in a more readable form, especially as (obviously!) many people on this forum have pre-op cataract issues..... just suggesting, and I"m only able to respond now because I've had my first cataract surgery.

    All the best and maybe it's all resolved by now anyway?

    • Posted

      Jude:

      Thanks for your sugesstion. Unfortunately, the website won't allow for editing of one's posts after initially posted. Sorry about the inconvenience of my somewhat rambling write-up.

      As for my condition, in the 9 days since my posting, the brightness and shadowiness problems have somewhat dissipated, at least to a more tolerable level. I now think my real problem is that I have larger than normal floaters, or blobs of goo, floating around in my eye. I suspect that this was directly a result of the catract surgery two months ago. I believe all I can do at this point is wait them out, hoping they break up or dissolve into smaller pieces. They say this can take up to a year or more. I hope others don't have to experience this after their surgery! My left eye surgery went great. My right eye surgery definitely did not.

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