Vision loss from cataract surgery

I am very sorry you are going through this. It sounds like you have a monofocal IOL which means you should see well at one distance. It's very unfortunate that the surgeon didn't let you pick your distance or at least discuss it with you beforehand. Additionally, if there is no single distance that you see well, perhaps you have an astigmatism which can be corrected with glasses. It could be something else as well. Do you know what your eye refraction/prescription is after cataract surgery?

Sorry to hear that you are going through so much trouble 😦 Is your other eye cataract free or has already been operated?

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I am not a doctor but we have no idea what your refractive numbers are post operation. Do you know the readings for both your eyes?

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Normally here they wait 2 months before making permanent glasses. It take 1-2 months for vision to settle.

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That may be true, but should putting in a farsighted lens eradicate the closeup vision I did have?

Yes, it seems you have monofocal lens. They can be targeted for either near or intermediate or far but not all 3. If your lens was targeted for far then yes you will lose near vision. Some % of people do end up being able to see all 3 ranges when lens is targeted for far. Then needing just readers to sharpen close up stuff. You obviously are not one of them.

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Your close up vision previously was based off your natural lens. That lens has been taken out and is long gone so has no direct relevance or impact on your current artificial lens.

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Maybe ophthalmologist needs to measure and give you accurate glasses that work for you. Can you go to another ophthalmologist?

Hi

Sorry you have these problems.

What strength glasses have you tried?

I would guess a pair of +3 readers should give you near vision.

It takes about 6 weeks for the eye to heal, and for some the eye drops also makes the vision blurry. before the eye have healed and you have stopped with eye drops, you really don´t know what you got.

And yes, they should have taken better time to explain it all to you.

So sorry you are experiencing this. Many surgeons are so busy they don't take the time to fully discuss your options for lenses and go over trade-offs of each lens type.

Where are you from? I know UK if done on NHS standardly don't discuss lens options as they only implant monofocal lenses usually targeted for distance.

It does sound like you had a monofocal lens targeted for distance. You can make an appt with your optometrist to see what oltikns ate available. Cheap readers aren't the best and won't help

if you have residual astigmatism from surgery. That could account for your blurry vision but the optometrist will be able to give you your exact prescription.

Cataract surgery renders everyone with come presbyopia. It doesn't matter what you could see before the surgery.

There are premium lenses (although not covered by insurance or national health so that adds considerable cost) that allow you to see both far intermediate and near vision but the compromise is night vision (more glare and halos). Some aren't bothered by those but some are.

Is your 2nd eye needing cataract surgery? Often people with monofocal lenses will target one eye for fistance snd the other eye 1.00 diopter closer to fain more range of focus.

If there is no cataract present in your other eye perhaps a contact lens would be a better solution.

In any case you can try different solutions with your optometrist to see what would work best. You can also consider an IOL exchange but that does carry some risk and requires a surgeon with experience doing exchanges.

Thank you all for your responses. I learned more here from you than in 6 visits to the ophthalmologist.

I'm in the US and I do have a cataract in the other eye, but I'm not letting this outfit near it!

I've tried readers, the strongest they have and they don't help; everything is magnified but still blurry. And, so far I haven't found any distance at which I can see anything clearly, near or far.

I am going to another dr for new glasses and hope they can give me back some closeup vision.

I am seriously upset about this. When I went back at 3 weeks complaining that I have no closeup vision they still didn't tell me about it being a monofocal distance lens. They did a bunch of tests that day and the dr said the eye was healing beautifully, looked great inside, but they had no idea why I have no closeup vision, then told me to come back for more testing because it was probably something in my brain, not my eye!

I feel like they've been more than negligent, and even duplicitous in the information they provided and left out, and in ignoring my need for closeup vision. And I did strongly stress needing closeup to everyone involved. It was the last thing I said to the surgeon before going into the OR. They have had plenty of opportunity to tell me the truth, but instead want more testing ($$$) and are blaming it on my brain.

This is severely impacting my job. And my peace of mind.

One other weird thing I've noticed is that even though things are blurry through my right eye, everything is a lot bigger/closer than with my left. I'm seriously wondering just what kind of lens they put in.