Can you tell me your experience with cataract surgery?

[summer_in_TX]

28. The eye doctor / surgeon makes a difference. Be willing to change to get the best.

Luckily a friend tipped us off to the one all the airline pilots use for their eye surgeries in this part of Central Texas. So I switched. It meant an extra eye exam so he could get familiar with my vision for himself, which pushed it back a little while. I later had a friend who worked in that eye clinic confirm my decision. The doctor I'd started with was not as successful all the time. The one I picked was not only first rate, he has a great personality too.

I had both eyes done a week apart, so quickly and easily that my husband waiting was surprised. I took the correction level that Medicare would pay for. I have considerable astigmatisms in both eyes and the new lenses did not adjust for that. Those would have cost us out of pocket perhaps $500. Don't remember now if that was for both eyes or not.

With the astigmatism not being corrected for, I was offered a choice of having lenses implanted that would correct my vision to far sighted or near sighted, or one of each type of lens. I'd always been very near-sighted so opted for the far-sighted lenses. I read signs sooner while driving, but missed being able to read close up easily. I wonder what it would have been like to do one of each.

The adjustment period sucked since I had astigmatisms. I could see well directly in front of me, but the sides were distorted due to my elongated eyeballs. My eyes got very tired quickly. It took perhaps six weeks for them to settle down so that glasses could be prescribed that corrected for the astigmatism. Readers allowed me to read up close but didn't correct for the astigmatism. What a relief when I got them!

The lenses they implant are not a perfect fit for the one removed and any tissue removed in the surgery. During the healing from surgery, the cornea regrows tissue filling in around the artificial lenses so they stabilize. At least that's how I understood what happens.

I'd had glasses since I was seven and I and my eyes were used to being behind a little protection frfm wind and dust. I couldn't really imagine being comfortable with no glasses. But I've probably spent almost the amount of money now in new glasses that fixing the astigmatism would have cost me.

I had to have the little laser zapping procedure done for the hazing effect too, about two years or so out. No problem at all with it, barely felt it.