I don’t love them, for sure. And, being 64, post-cataract, and T2DM, I see the doc twice a year.
The refraction step (“Which is better, 1 or 2?”) varies from “yeah, 1 is waaaay better” to “Could I see them both again please?” because it’s such a near thing.
And there’s the field-of-vision test where you’re staring with one eye into a big white hemisphere where you have to click on a handheld remote whenever you see a light, no matter how faint. I’m always worried I’m missing something. The doc, last time, admitted that the thing is sometimes set up to trick you (e.g. going a long time between lights). Dunno if that one is strictly routine these days; as someone who’s had cataract surgery, and had somewhat elevated eye pressure before the surgery, I put up with it.
The worst part, fortunately very fast, is the shining of “BRIGHTLIGHT.OUCH.OW.OUCH.BRIGHTOWIEOWIEOWIE!!!”. I’m sensitive to bright lights anyway. I told the eye doc once “Well, at least if I ever quit complaining about that, you know something’s really wrong!”.
I actually quit going to my previous eye doc for a while because the step where they take a quick BRIGHTFLASHOUCHOUCH of the retina, which used to be with a “set your chin here and keep your eye open wide!” machine was replaced with a device that was attached to an iPhone! It was slower and much more accident prone - it was agonizing. IIRC, I finally went back to that doctor, and refused that step. The device would be great if you were in a place where the dedicated machine was not available - but that was NOT the case here.
No injected anesthetic for my cataract surgery, unless there were a LOT more drugs in my sedation cocktail than I was led to believe. Ditto for a friend who had a much more involved cataract surgery a few months later. Light sedation would NOT have done the job, if a needle had been involved. Injections are generally used much less commonly than they used to be, I gather. I have to wonder why on earth they’d need it???
A longish thread on the topic of cataract surgery, for anyone looking at this possibility.