Who what now? If it was in the thread sorry if I missed it.
May the 4th be with you. . .
It’s Star Wars Day.
My knee-jerk reaction just to reading the title is NOOOOOOOOOO! I’m someone who, while intrigued by the idea of doing without glasses, never ever considered Lasik.
In your case, it sounds like it’s not a completely terrible idea. Dry eye is something to be concerned about of course.
Have you thought about what type of implant you’ll get? Multifocal lenses, or different prescriptions in each eye, or just dealing with the fact that you’ll still need glasses a lot of the time? That’s the one concern I have for how things are happening so fast for you: when I got my eyes done, I had quite a few months to think about the best choice for me (low-add multifocals, good for distance and intermediate).
The loss of close-up vision has been the biggest adjustment for me. I cannot read medicine bottles without help, for example. For the most part, I get by without glasses because my reading is done on my Kindle or phone, where I can adjust the brightness and font. For the person who asked about whether the lenses could work with the eye muscles to adapt to different distances: 5 years back, I was told that the ones they had tried simply did not work well. Things may have changed since then.
Use of lasers is not especially new. I had that when mine were done in 2018. Not all doctors were using them (another reason I’m glad I dumped my previous eye doc).
To be honest, I wouldn’t do it if I were you, but I’m NOT you, LOL.
The three basic options presented to me were:
mono-focal lens, either correcting for a given distance, or choosing two with one in each eye. My contacts, the rare time I wear them, were like this - my left eye gave me distance and driving, and my right eye gave me the ability to read my phone. The doctor says some people don’t adjust well to this option and they only consider it for people who are very successful with it in contacts.
multi-focal lens. Effectively it’s three overlapping lenses, one each for distance, middle, and short range. Your brain filters out the ones you don’t want, basically focusing on the right image without the muscular involvement.
truly accomodating lens. This is the one that works with your eye muscles. It provides really crisp distance and mid range, but leaves you needing reading glasses. This is popular with hunters, police officers, and others who really need that top end distance vision, apparently.
The middle option - the multifocal - has a very high chance of leaving me glasses free for virtually all or all of my daily activities. The distance won’t be quite as crisp as the third option, but isn’t expected to actually be ‘bad’ or even ‘just good enough’. I like to golf, for instance, and he says it won’t effect me.
I also specifically talked about needing to be able to read without glasses.
How do you manage during this time? I’m assuming you have one eye with good focus (the “new” one) and one that still needs a lens to compensate. Knock out one of the lenses on your glasses? Get a parrot and learn to say “Arrrgh!” (along with another accessory – you know…). Can you drive during these weeks or are you forced to stay home with wine and Netflix?
I’m scheduled for cataract consultation next week. Still preparing a list of questions for the docs.
FWIW: As of now I’m planning to ask for distance vision in both eyes. We travel a lot (RV-ing) and I’d like to be certain I have good long-distance and night vision. I can keep reading glasses with me as needed, or even buy cheaters at Walgreens in a pinch.
Q for anyone: Do the distance replacement lenses focus a really long way away? Or can you read the speedometer while driving?
I was wondering about that too. (Not an issue in my case - we’re doing both eyes in the same sitting.)
I suppose someone could wear one contact. I specifically had to be out of my contacts for a week before my consultation. I rarely wear them anyway, so I’m not sure if I had to stay out of them before the surgery or not.
Then again, I remember back in college I used to wear weekly disposable contacts. Every so often, I’d stagger the day that I was switching lenses, and spend a whole day with only one lens in to let my other eye “rest.” So I’d somewhat routinely have a corrected eye and an uncorrected eye. It actually wasn’t a big deal.
Yes, they took out the right lens from my glasses. I admit it’s occasionally confusing, and I often half to close one eye. I don’t drive, so that’s not a problem. By the third day my right eye was back to better-than-ever, so that’s a plus. When it’s all over I should be able to see distances fine, but I may need glasses to read, which is, y’know, the reverse of most of my life.
Nine days in and I’ve quit wearing my old glasses, 'cause my right eye is so much stronger than the left and if I look with both eyes through the old lens, I get a disturbing blur.
Congratulations!
Good luck on your procedure.
I’ve heard of intraocular lens implants, how is refractive lens exchange different? Or are they the same?
Thanks! The nurse called this afternoon to give me the schedule. I need to show up at 11am Eastern time on Thursday, and the whole thing should take about two hours.
To my understanding, RLE is the procedure, and the IOL is the thing they insert as part of the procedure.
I’m home! Everything went very well. My eyes sting a little bit right now, so I’m sure I’ll be using liberal amounts of my preservative free rewetting drops. I have three prescription drops to manage at various times today. Follow-up appointment tomorrow morning, at which point they’ll give me the rest of the schedule for the drops.
I’m not allowed to run or lift anything heavy. When I shower, I need to keep my eyes closed and face away from the spray. And there are plastic guards I need to tape over my eyes when I sleep. Those restrictions are all for the next week.
My distance vision is decent to good right now. Watching TV is ok. It’s hard to read the computer screen. My eyes ae still dilated. Over the next day or two I should see significant improvements.
Overall, it looks like I’m right on plan.
I’ll post more when it’s a little less annoying.
Next day update. I can read my phone and my computer, although it’s not perfect.
A friend took me out to dinner last night, and the halos-at-night is absolutely a real thing. Hopefully that calms down soon.
I drove myself to my follow-up appointment. The doctor confirmed my hunch - I’m ahead of the predicted healing schedule. It isn’t clear if that means I’ll have better than average results, or just a fast recovery. The doctor did say my lenses seem to be perfectly centered and that I have almost no inflammation already. He was very happy with the status. He says he expects my vision to improve quite a bit still, which would make me Very Happy™.
I do see little flickers around the edges of my field of view at times. Doc says that’ll go away soon.
They gave me a nice chart to help me track my eye drops for the next six weeks. I have Moxifloxacin (antibiotic) twice a day for a week. Ilevro is once a day for 6 weeks, and difluprednate is twice a day for 4 weeks. Plus rewetting drops at least 4x a day, and more if as needed. The most annoying part of the drops is they leave a residue on my eye lashes and my lower eye lids, and I’m not allowed to clean those other than with my rewetting drops for a week. The moxi is yellow 
Restrictions for the week: Shower with my eyes closed, facing away from the water. Only use a washcloth, gently, on my face, and not between my cheek bones and my eyebrows. No lifting more than 20lbs, no sweating, no jarring exercises. No sleeping with a pet. No creams or makeup around my eyes. Wear clear shields over my eyes when asleep.
I have nifty cards that state that I have implanted corrected lenses, in case I get pulled over. I’m supposed to be able to take them to the driver’s license agency and get the restriction removed from my license. I’ll set up an appointment for that in a week or so, after my eyes have stabailized.
I just had my one week follow-up with my regular eye doctor. She’s very happy with my progress. Says the lenses look perfect and my incisions are healed. All restrictions are lifted. I have a little fuzziness in reading my computer monitor, and the night halos. But the official testing shows my right eye at 20/20 for both distance and reading, and my left eye at 20/25 for both right now. She expects that to get better in about a week as swelling goes down, and even better in a month as I get off the eye drops. She says most of my surgeon’s patients settle in around 20/15 and she expects that to be my result as well. The halos will calm down in some number of months. They’re very noticeable at night, but not enough to cause trouble driving.
So, I guess it’s so far so good!
Well done! I’ve been reading this thread because I’m quite curious about doing this myself. Not $11k curious - yet! - but curious. I think I’ll wait for my vision to get worse before I do this, and maybe Medicare will help someday.
So today I went for my final follow-up visit. For the first time since 3rd grade I don’t need glasses. My eyes are 20/20 and 20/30. However, I do have to use reading glasses, which is not much of a grumble.
Everything went well and nothing hurt.
Glad to hear everything is going well for you too, Digital!
This was my plan too. I always had a line in the sand before I’d consider it. The one I ended up crossing was losing the ability to read without my glasses. My reading capabilities were changing enough that my glasses didn’t correct properly for 6 months at a time, and I could deal with that by lifting them out of the way. Once that wasn’t an option, the surgery was on the table.
You’re still less than a month post-surgery. Do your doctors think your vision has settled into the final configuration, or is it just not likely to improve in that particular way?
Still, not wearing glasses for most of your activities is awesome. I’m glad you’re satisfied with your results too.
No, they think I’m in its final configuration. I do go back in 2 weeks for a final, final checkup, but they don’t expect anything to have altered. I hope yours goes as well as mine did.
One thing I just realized. I had been seeing a flickering ring in my peripheral vision at times. I initially thought it was caused by lingering drops on my eye lashes, but the doc on my day-after appointment told me it was actually the edge of the lens, and that my brain will get used to it.
I was just thinking about it, and realized I haven’t noticed it in about two days.
Yay neuroadaptation! Gives confidence in the other pieces improving too 