To operate or not to operate
Posted , 4 users are following.
Hi all,
I had cataract surgery on my left eye 7 months ago. The doctor recommended to do the right eye too, because I have a tiny cataract and the doctor said it would progress and is better to have both eyes balanced.
However, my right eye has been ok for 2 years, no worsening, and am happier with my right natural lens than with the left artificial one. I went to an optician today looking for advice on what to do. He didn't help, he said it was up to me.
Pros of operating: 1) if the right eye gets worse eventually I may need to wait until it is very bad to get a referral for surgery. That's how it worked with the left eye and I was an entire year with very poor vision; 2) balanced eyes
Cons of operating: 1) I would lose the ability to focus; 2) my right eye is doing a decent job
Many thanks for any advice!
Federico
0 likes, 8 replies
RonAKA federico91976
Edited
Can you provide a bit more detail? Do you have a monofocal in the left eye? And is it set to give you distance vision, or? What is your eyeglass correction prescriptions for your eyes now?
federico91976 RonAKA
Posted
The one in the left eye is monofocal, and I ended up a bit far-sighted. Hence, I don't see well without glasses when things are closer than 2m. My right eye has some correction for moderate presbyopia. This is my current prescription:
This is my prescription:
Right eye:
Sph: Distance 0.00, near 1.50;
Cyl: -1.00
Axis: 105
Left eye (the one operated):
Sph: Distance +0.75, near 2.25
Cyl: -0.50
Axis: 100
federico91976
Posted
Let me add that the right eye improves a lot with glasses, both for far sight and near sight, while when I had cataracts in the left eye there was no way to improve sight
RonAKA federico91976
Edited
It looks like you have very good vision in your right eye except for some astigmatism. It is unfortunate that the surgeon missed on the left eye and left your far sighted. But all in all you do not have much imbalance between the eye even though one has an IOL and one is still the natural eye. My opinion is that you will not suffer from the little imbalance there is and it would be fine to wait until the cataract becomes worse. It would be a good idea to get regular checkups and get yourself in the wait queue at the appropriate time to get the surgery. It is a bit of a guessing game, but your optometrist should be able to tell you how quickly the cataract is progressing and help you with the timing decision.
federico91976 RonAKA
Posted
Thanks very much, RonAKA, that's reassuring. The problem with waiting times is that here, in the national health service, you have to meet a certain threshold (=being quite blind) to get approval for cataract surgery. My left eye granted that for both the left and right. Anyways, I'll stick with my right natural lens, I appreciate a lot the work it does
Night-Hawk federico91976
Edited
I also had cataract surgery in only one eye (5 years ago) since that eye had significant cataract that reduced my best corrected distance vision to poor 20/100 or worse. But my other eye still has good corrected clear sharp vision with glasses - could still be many years before that other eye would need surgery, so I've stayed with the natural lens in that eye. That eye has worse astigmatism than yours does, mine is about -2D cylinder compared to your -1D. My eye with the monofocal IOL has about 20/25 uncorrected distance vision with small astigmatism about 0.75D cylinder - with glasses both eyes can get better than 20/20. So I'd recommend avoiding surgery in your other eye until its best corrected vision worsens significantly - your current Rx for that eye is small and you might not get any better than that with surgery now anyway!
Guest RonAKA
Edited
I agree with Ron. 0.75 would be almost imperceptible in terms of balance. If your eyes were way out of balance and not working together, believe me, you would know! I just had surgery done and now my eyes are 0 sphere and -4 sphere and it can be quite disorienting. For TV I'm wearing some old -2 computer glasses with one lens popped out and that's ok. When I try a single -4 lens that's actually more disorienting that nothing at all. I think the -2 spectacle (in my case) is just enough to take the "edge" off the imbalance but not so much as to cause a big difference in the image sizes which is what most people's brains can't deal with. Using a contact lens instead works fantastic but then you need to buy (and put in) contacts all the time plus I'd need readers all the time as my natural eye has almost no accommodation left.
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Anyway I started to ramble there but ya, .75D isn't going to cause an imbalance. If your natural eye is still working well for you and has NO accuity issues at distance (amazing actually), wait. It's routine surgery but it's still surgery and it's essentially irreversible and the technology is improving in leaps and bounds all the time. Wait. It's pretty simple in my mind… if you don't NEED surgery, don't have surgery.
federico91976 Guest
Posted
Thank you! I just visited the doctor yesterday and am very happy to had cancelled the operation. I love my right eye despite those minor defects. I am learning to appreciate the job it does... it's a good job, I guess the problems with the left eye and the fact that 2-3 years ago my sight was better than perfect has make it a bit more difficult for me to adapt, but am happy now and with some glasses I can see wonderfully.