I plan on having the intra-ocular lens implant surgery done when I’m in my late 60’s (about 15 years from now), even if I don’t have cataracts. I currently wear contact lenses and have so for the last 40 years with no problems, wearing glasses for prolonged periods of time gives me headaches. I am not a candidate for LASIKS due to thin corneas. Alzheimers runs in my family (grandfather, father and several aunts). I don’t want to be relying on my own ability in the future to be able to put contact lenses in on a regular basis, if I develop ALZ. Hence the decision to do the replacement lens procedure.
I asked my eye doctor about getting LASIK and she told me it does not work on farsightedness (which I am). She never mentioned any alternative for me. My eyesight is not bad but I cannot read a book or computer screen without glasses. Mostly I just get readers at the pharmacy and they suffice.
Not sure if a surgery is worth it for me and I’ve never come to a firm notion on.
My mom got LASIK and loved it. After decades of wearing glasses she did not need them any more. Had better eyesight than me at almost 90 years old.
Reviving this old thread because I need cataract surgery. Can’t read it all right away because I’m now in a tough spot, seeing double from my right eye because of cataracts, but a few days ago something got in my left eye that I can’t dislodge and now it’s swollen up. Going to the eye doctor tomorrow. Hope this clears up because I’m supposed to see the cataract specialist next week, but close to legally blind right now. Getting a head ache squinting my right eye to see well enough. Will read details above eventually, curious about the recovery period. Sounds like I shouldn’t need glasses when it’s all done. Never needed glasses before, I think I’m too old to learn how not to lose them like every pair of sunglasses I’ve ever owned.
I saw an item on the news about new cataract lenses. Once “installed” they can be adjusted over the next few weeks with a blast of UV light - basically I think your eye squashes the lens with use, and then the the UV process slowly hardens the lens into the optimal shape. It mentioned not covered by provincial health (the standard type lens is) and could cost $3,000 or so per eye.
Here’s some clinic describing it:
I can’t wait for the bionic lenses that they are going to have when I need them in twenty years.
Especially the telephoto option where your eyes bug out an inch like in the cartoons… 
They make an annoying sort of chirping sound as you focus in on things.
And a range finder with cross hairs.
Did they have IR or X-ray vision? Because that would be cool.
And BTW (to avoid any further hijack), I had cataract surgery myself and they were able to improve the vision in my right eye from my previous Lasik surgery. I haven’t “had” to wear glasses in 20 years now for normal stuff, but I do use computer glasses and get presription sunglasses, becasue why not?
My mom had the surgery when she was in her early 80s and was able to pass the driver’s license vision test for the first time since she was 16.
My boss years ago was planning to have lasik surgery, until he found out it would mean he needed reading glasses. Considering his job mainly consisted of looking at computer screens (and was near-sighted), he decided it was too much of a hassle. a few years later I heard about the “one eye near, one eye far” solution. Not sure if he took them up on that later.
I may have mentioned this in the other thread, but my grandmother had cataract surgery in both eyes (one at a time) in her 80s. I don’t remember the specifics, but each time she was given a zipper bag for holding singlasses (this type, actually) that had a tag attached to the zipper with the specific prescription for the lens printed on it. The sunglasses are necessary for the rest of your life afterwards in bright situations because you eyes can no longer adjust their f-stop as well as before. (In her case she didn’t get a lot of improvement from their surgeries because they were a semi-symbolic guestire on top of untreatable macular degeneration.)
I had cataracts in both eyes and had them sorted. They took a lot of trouble measuring my eyes before the surgery and now I have excellent distance vision. I watch TV (about three metres away) and drive without glasses, but I need some magnification for reading (1.5 works well).
I buy reading glasses from Hong Kong through Amazon at £4 a pair and treat them as fairly disposable.
This caught me up short, I find it difficult to understand. In California, where I live, I have to pass an informal eye test by reading some text of a given size and at a given distance. It doesn’t sound like your mother would have been able to do that. It sounds like she couldn’t read road signs. How did she get permission to drive?
I was told I might need reading glasses. I could have started using them a couple years ago but didn’t need to do much reading. I uses to wear the weakest versions when meeting clients for the first time and later on job interviews because they made me look smarter.
At this moment, I’m sitting in the hospital waiting room for my post-op follow-up. I’m quite taken with a previous poster’s “singlasses”, but I doubt if the NHS prescribes them.
I developed a cataract after detached retina surgery. When it came time to do the lens replacement I asked about it being corrected. The problem was that my other eye had/has a -8 diopter and the doctor would not “fix” the bad eye alone because he said the brain wouldn’t be a happy camper having a perfect eye and one so badly near-sighed. He said they could “fix” both at the same time, but I had a problem with cutting into a healthy albeit near-sighted eye, so I opted for the replacement lens to mimic in strength the cataract one. That was 9 years ago, Now the healthy eye is starting to show early signs of a cataract. I’m told it’ll be bad within 5 years and will need to be fixed then. I’m wondering now if it would be worth “fixing” bot, or if the insurance will say tough crap about eye #1.
Had to scroll up to confirm that the typo was mine. Were you hoping to receive sin glasses, or sing lasses? Either way, sorry to give you false hope.
I’m used to disappointment:)
Would “singlasses” be a modern version of the “x-ray” glasses that used to be advertised at the back of certain magazines in the 1960s?