waiting for piggyback lens since Feb. 2016.

Mike,

Thanks for replying, I have thought there might be other options, maybe I should get another doctors opinion.

Unfortunately although the other poster said "they've mucked it up once", it isn't clear that they did. Unfortunately there is no exact formula to determine the appropriate lens power for an IOL. They have databases of eye measurements for many people along with what lens power would have worked best for them,  and use that to develop approximate formulas (regression analysis) to guess what lens power they should insert based on your eye measurements. Usually for most people with average eyes the result is fairly accurate, but not always. Errors are more common for those who had strong prescriptions before surgery.

If the lens power isn't off after surgery then they have 3 options: lens exchange to a different lens power, a 2nd piggyback lens, or laser surgery (LASIK or PRK, many docs seem to usually prefer PRK). Which one to use depends on how far off the lens power is, and various attributes of  the surgery and your eye (e.g. how much space there is for a piggyback lens, how fragile the lens capsule was to decide if a lens exchange is easy, etc).  Doctors will vary in their preferences, another opinion can't hurt. 

In terms of the issue of waiting on FDA approval, there are options that are FDA approved. It is worth finding out why the surgeon thinks its better to wait on this one. Although I haven't had reason to research piggyback lenses,  unfortunately the FDA is notoriously slow at approving new medical devices. Many ophthalmologists  complain they keep us a few years at least behind much of the rest of the world. Many products approved in Europe are never even submittted for approval in the US  due to the expense and time involved, even products from some American companies. I wanted to get the latest premium lens and wound up deciding to go to Europe in Dec. 2014 for my cataract surgery since it wasn't approved in the US, the Symfony (made by US company AMO), which still isn't approved here (I heard a rumor it might be within 6 months or so). There are a few different trifocal IOLs available in Europe (the multifocals in the US are just bifocals), I'd hoped to get one of those before the Symfony came out and I decided on that instead, and none of the trifocals are  approved in the US, and I hadn't even heard of any of them trying for US approval yet.

 

Thank you for your feedback.

All of those three options are irreversible. Having worse vision then before I had my cataract surgery, I know what option I would choose.  Something external to the eye.

Lens exchange and a piggyback lens are both "reversible". LASIK/PRK isn't reversible in the sense that the changes to the tissue   can't be undone, but they can do an addition laser correction if needed to alter the refraction again if they didn't get it right. For small adjustments after cataract surgery the results tend to be very good.  

Mike,

Doctor did tell me that piggy-back lens is reversible.

OK...perhaps wrong use of the word.  But time for a reality check.  Slice your eye open once.  Ooops...wrong lens correction....sorry ....let's slice your eye open again...try again...put in a piggybck lense.  Oh gosh, cocked that one up as well...OK...third time lucky ?

Your comment seems to be assuming that the wrong lens power was necessarily due to surgeon error, when the odds are there is nothing another surgeon would have done differently.  In reality no surgeon on earth can always choose the correct power lens at the moment, even if they usually do. There is no exact formula, they are all based on statistics and unfortunately there are statistical outliers (more common among high myopes or high hyperopes). Even though most lens power choices are close enough, *someone* winds up being the "statistic" who isn't and often they post on a site like this.

There is less uncertainty involved in choosing the power of a piggyback IOL. Unlike when figuring out an IOL power to replace the natural lens, this is a corrective lens. Just like with  a contact lens or glasses prescription, they can figure out what corrective power is needed. Overall they can determine the lens power required for a piggyback much more accurately than the original IOL. There is some uncertainty in the required lens power for a piggyback due to uncertain exact placement, but the issue should be small. The exact lens position does influence the power of a lens, but it will make less of a difference. If the original IOL was say 20D then whatever small X% change in power might be due to uncertainty in the exact placement of the lens is much smaller with say a 2D piggyback lens since X% of that is 1/10th the size.

 

Thanks for your comments, are you able to sue the Doctor that make the mistake?

I am thinking of it but I live in the mountains and very hard to find a lawer who will take a mal practice case, I am trying to get all my records so in case I do I will have what the lawers need.  I am having trouble getting my records from the Dr.'s, that right there is telling me something. I have one year to sue.