I wrote my last too early - already, one day after the operation, things have settled down enough for the treated eye to have very clear distance vision. The only problem is that, without my varifocals, it seems as though my brain is having trouble melding the image from the previously myopic eye with the equally sharp presbyopic eye. I’ll just have to see (!) how we go as the bruising on the eyeball settles down.
They might be using that feedback to determine where your head is at, post-surgery and whether or not you need more recovery time before being turned loose.
Feedback I’ve received says it takes about a week for your eyes to adjust to work compatibly.
Sounds about right. Three days in, and I’m reasonably comfortable going without glasses for everything but really close work, but still having slightly to concentrate. Just marvelling that for the first time that I recall I’ve got crystal-clear sharp definition distance vision in both my eyes. The TV looks a bit brighter and sharper.
But the eye drops regime is a bit of a bore: still can’t quite get my aim right every time.
I have better luck with eye drops in the dark, when I can’t see them falling and blink. I can measure off my nose with my thumb to get the aim correct without seeing.
Back to this again. To remind, I’m 61 and have had cataract surgery in both eyes, about 11 months apart, and this was 4 years ago.
Now my R eye vision has become blurred, because of a PCO, posterior capsule opacification, which is a clouding of my lens capsule which holds the cataract replacement lens. So I’ll be going in for a consult for a simple outpatient procedure called YAG laser capsulotomy. That consult will be on 31 May.
I may have this YAG procedure in my future in my left eye. It has some opacification but not so bad that I’m having a problem seeing right now, so they said we’ll just monitor it for now. It’s only been about a year since my cataract surgeries.
I was discussing YAG with my Mom the other day, since I just had RLE (without cataracts) last week. She and Dad both had PCO at some point after their cataract surgery. She told me the YAG was quick - like seconds - and pretty much a non-event.
That is good to know. I’ve heard it’s almost nothing, but it’s nice to hear that from regular people and not just the doctor!
Question:
Is there any way to surgically, or otherwise alter eyesight to get better than 20/20 vision?
If so, this procedure would be in demand for certain people like athletes, pilots, or other occupations that require perfect vision.
LASIK is very popular. It’s improved significantly in the past 20 years.
I never had it. I was already middle aged and knew my cataracts were already forming. I didn’t want to risk LASIK back then.
I assume “20/20” is the measure intended to indicate perfect vision, and that “21/20” would be a meaningless concept, like the volume control that goes all the way up to 11. But I’d willingly accept correction from an expert.
Not really. 20/20 means you can see at 20 feet what a person with “normal” vision can see at 20 feet. There is a measurement for those who can see at 20 feet what can normally be seen at 10 (and maybe 15) feet. I forget which order the numbers go in, as i measure my prescription in diopters of correction.
But there’s a lot more to “perfect vision” than how small a letter you can identify in the center of your vision under excellent light while focusing on ‘infinity’.
How you see in dim light. How well you discern color. How wide your range of useful vision is. Do you have visual artifacts, like floaters or halos or spots. How large a range you can focus over (near vision to far vision). Probably other stuff.
Some people have been born with vision that is better than 20/20.
It exists in three increments:
20/15, 20/10, and 20/5.
It is impossible for human beings to have vision that is better than 20/5.
This is reserved for certain animals like hawks, who are believed to to have 20/2 vision.
So yes, it’s possible for people to have better than 20/20 vision, so I guess it’s possible to improve 20/20 vision surgically.
Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox, the hall of fame great baseball player and the last to average .400 hitting over an entire season, has excellent eyesight. His was 20/15. He was also a fighter pilot in the Marine Corps. He flew with John Glenn the astronaut and later US Senator (and also a Marine).
Corrected, with eyeglasses my eyesight is 20/15. My doc told me that with LASIK is only get to about 20/30, so clearly not as good. I decided to stay with eyeglasses.
I don’t remember why the LASIK would not be as good. Maybe it’s physics and optics, maybe it’s biology. Or both.
As puzzlegal says, there’s more to measuring vision than the 20/20 type number… But with that said:
I had RLE just over three weeks ago - basically cataract surgery, but without waiting for the cataracts to actually exist. At my one week follow-up, I was seeing at 20/20 (20/20 in my right eye, and 20/30 in my left eye). My doctor says that will improve, and that patients from the surgeon I used very typically end up at 20/15. (And she expects that from my case).
I’m an outlier I guess. Cataract surgery 2 weeks ago and something went awry. 20/25 in one eye and blind in the other. I can only detect light and dark, and sometimes differentiate large shapes (if they’re heavily contrasted to background).
Apparently I had some sort of seizure/brain-misfire during the procedure and pulled everything loose just as they were positioning the new lens. I have no memory of this nor any rational explanation, it just happened. They repositioned me somehow and the surgeon inserted another lens (first was damaged and unusable) and finished as best he could.
The current prognosis is I’m unable to see past all the debris that was jarred loose when I jerked around (had 3 exams since). It’s formed a pool of sediment that will not go away on its own. They’re planning another detailed examination in about a month to decide what’s next. Surgeon is confident it can be fixed, but still deciding what’s the best path.
Assuming it’ll take a few weeks after the exam to get worked on again, I’ll be operating with one eye well into the summer. So I’ve been “teaching” myself to do normal stuff (mainly driving) by gradually increasing the level and complexity. I got on the freeway yesterday for the first time, and judging by the lack of honking I did OK.
At this point I’m regretting the decision to get the surgery. I wish I hadn’t done it. Maybe later it’ll be worth it, but not now.
Ouch! Best wishes.
I assume they want to wait for everything to heal (no blood leaking, etc.) before going in to clean up the mess. If your surgeon is confident it can be fixed, they are probably right. I know people whose eyeball jelly has been replaced with fluid, for instance, who see fine. So if the problem is that the jelly is full of gunk ripped loose during the procedure, it ought to be fixable. I assume they are worried about what caused the seizure and want to make sure they don’t trigger another one.
@pullin that is just awful. I hope they can correct and restore your vision.
I came here because I called my doctors office yesterday. If YAG is such a simple outpatient procedure, then I don’t want to have to go there 2x, once for the consultation then return for the procedure. Why not do both in one visit? They’re checking with the doc. My consult is scheduled for Wednesday.
A similar thing happened to TubaDiva (R.I.P.) She lost sight in one eye during recovery or so I understand. After surgery, she could see, then it got blurry, then faded away to shadows. The adjustment isn’t easy but was easier for her because she didn’t drive. I hope like crazy that you can recover from this.
Thanks everyone for your good wishes. Surgeon is pretty confident it’s fixable, but it’s annoying and a bit worrisome to spend a month with monocular vision. Weirdly, I can drive and walk around OK, but have trouble with close-up depth perception (like pouring coffee, or putting toothpaste on my brush). It’s the little things instead of the big ones.