Sucking the eyes out of your head through a tube.

They'll sedate me, they just won't knock me out completely.

Yep. It's really a very safe and effective procedure. Creepy, that's all.

You've only switched from hard to soft lenses now? Gosh! I had hard lenses when I was 12 years old (that was 53 years ago) and at some point switched to rigid gas-permeable lenses, which I was still using around 1989 or 1990 when I stopped wearing contact lenses, though my sister was wearing soft lenses by then. Maybe 5 years ago I started wearing them again for hiking and diving, but got soft lenses, and this spring, for summer's hiking, I switched to daily disposables, which are wonderful.

If all goes well, I won't need correction for far distance any more. During the two weeks between eyes, I'll wear one contact lens in the eye not yet treated, to avoid the extreme imbalance which my surgeon says is intolerable. He says with my level of myopia, wearing glasses with one lens and one blank would make me feel awful, but if I wear one contact lens I'll be okay.

After the surgery I'll need reading glasses, and if I still need some correction for distance I'll still use daily disposable lenses for hiking and diving. There's a 10% chance the surgery will still leave me with some astigmatism, and I don't know what my chances are of having perfect 20-20 vision, so I might still need glasses for driving. It would be really nice not to need them, but I've worn contact lenses or glasses all my life, so I can handle it. The really great thing would be to be able to hike without correction, but if correction gives me even slightly better vision I'd use it.

I think my vision with glasses is about 20-30 now, so 20-20 would be cool.

 

Thanks for the warning about not watching the DVD. I've never heard of this before. I've had three operations, not counting the laser iridotomy, which was a few minutes sitting in a chair with my face resting up against the machine. I've never been offered a DVD of any of them. I doubt I'd take them up on the offer.

Thanks. My daily life is not much affected by the cataracts yet. My corrected vision is 20-30 and contact lenses work well for hiking. (I use them because glasses fog up when I'm sweating on the uphill slogs, and when it rains.) If my eyes were not going to get any worse, I would not need surgery at all. Except for hiking and sometimes diving, I use glasses, not contact lenses.

But the eyes will continue to get worse, and at 9 diopters my right eye now takes the strongest power they make in a toric daily disposable lens. So this is being done now before my vision gets bad enough to be a problem on my hiking trips, and before the cataracts get bad enough to have a noticeable effect on my vision. In fact, the left eye really would not need it probably for a few more years, but having seven diopters correction in one eye and none in the other is an imbalance which would itself be difficult to cope with, so they're doing both to keep them in balance.

I have no idea if it will "feel" different having glasses that go the opposite direction. I.e. reading glasses instead of distance glasses. A new prescription always feels peculiar for a while.

Someone asked me yesterday if I was excited to have my vision corrected. I'm too creeped out by the prospect of surgery on my eyes to feel excited. I know the chances of complications are minimal. I'm more likely to fall off the mountain next time I go hiking than have an unsuccessful operation. But it's still a creepy prospect. I don't know whether to be relieved that it's still three weeks away, or disappointed that it's not going to be over with sooner.

 

Since I only wear contacts for hiking, and sometimes diving, instead of carrying spares I carry a pair of prescription sport goggles in my backpack.

After the surgery, in addition to the reading glasses I'll need, and perhaps middle-distance glasses as well, I am going to get a pair of super-close-up glasses since, like you, I like being able to see close up for removing splinters, etc.

 

Thanks for all that. I will see if I can get the second one moved up. The surgeon did tell me that removing one lens from my glasses was not a workable solution, but he said that wearing one contact lens would be.

Actually, I may try to see if I can get everything moved up. Now that I've made the decision and accepted that I'm going to have the surgery, I'd just as soon get it over with. And getting it moved up would give me more recovery time before my snowshoeing trip. I may really need that time because if I still need correction, I'll need time to get fitted for and have delivered new contact lenses for the trip. Glasses while snowshoeing would not be ideal, since they would not only fog up, but they might frost over.

Things do not look larger with my contact lenses than with my glasses. Presumably, I'll get used to whatever the difference is.

 

Good news. My surgeries are each moved up two weeks. The right eye will be done Monday of next week, and the left eye two weeks later. I had phoned yesterday and was told by the scheduler that she would note my wish to be moved up, but that everything was full. Today she called with the offer to move it up two weeks and I jumped at the chance.

I also asked if the second eye could be done one week after the first, and she said that my surgeon has had that request before, also from severely myopic people, with the same concern about two weeks of imbalance, but that he always refuses, as he feels the full two weeks is necessary.

I had mentioned the time issue with respect to my upcoming snowshoeing trip in December. I don't know if that's why I got the earlier dates, or if I just got lucky. Sometimes doctors keep some space open for urgent cases that pop up. Maybe he decided that my trip justified it. Or maybe there actually was a cancelation or postponement, and I was the only one who had thought of asking for an earlier date. Maybe nobody else wanted an earlier date, preferring to postpone the unpleasantness of surgery. I'm actually looking forward to the prospect of better eyesight.

Even if they only get me to 20-30, that's what I have now with correction. It would mean I could hike with glasses (rather than contact lenses) and just take the glasses off when it rains or I am sweating uphill, and still see as well as I do now with lenses. It would mean that if I lost my glasses I would not be blind, so I would not need to carry spare glasses or sport goggles with me at all times.

 

Thanks, Electric. Oh, yes, I'll survive it just fine. It's just creepy, as I said before. But I'm really glad it got moved up two weeks, so I can get it over with, and so I will have two additional weeks to recover and get any needed glasses or contact lenses before my snowshoeing trip.

(Like your grandmother, I have a very low pain threshold. I also tend to complain a lot when I'm in pain. But also, I get motion sick very easily. I get motion sick on porch swings and rocking chairs, and even on swivel chairs if I inadvertently start swiveling back and forth. So I'm concerned about the effects of having my two eyes so far out of balance for the two weeks between procedures. I already know I'm going to need to wear a contact lens in the left eye during that time. And that, too, will be a bother, since keeping a contact lens in all day is not the most comfortable thing for me. I wear them for hiking, since glasses fog up, but by the end of the hike I am very eager to get them off. And since I need to use eye drops for the two days prior to the operation, this means that for the two days before the second operation I won't be able to wear the contact lens.)

I will be very relieved when it's all over with.

 

Thanks, Bob.

 

On Monday I had the surgery on my right eye. As promised it was almost completely painless. I think the most pain was the injection of a local anesthetic into my arm prior to inserting the IV. I was awake but sedated, and I remember the whole thing, which from my point of view was looking up into blurry bright lights. When they were done they put an eye guard over my eye. Not really a patch in any sense, it was very bulky with lots of holes in it so that I could see out from it except where it was covered by the adhesive tape that held it on.

The rest of the day was miserable. I could put on my glasses, but the eye guard prevented the glasses from seating properly against my face, and being pushed out so far, the glasses did not correct the vision in my other eye. I could not scratch my eyebrow because of the guard, so of course it itched like mad and just about drove me insane. I could read only with difficulty, and it gave me a headache because I was reading with just the left eye, and the glasses on crooked and too far out. I tried to watch a movie, but could not see it clearly for the same reason, so I went to bed early. Every time I woke up during the night, the eye either itched fiercely, or felt scratchy.

This morning I went in for the post-op and they took the eye guard off, which was a relief, and I got a pair of reading glasses ("cheaters"). Then I put a contact lens in the left eye to balance the two eyes, and it made me dizzy because my vision in the left eye with the contact lens was much worse than my vision in the right eye, which now has the artificial lens. Over the course of the day, I kind of got used to that, but I went back and got a new refraction done for the left eye to find out what was going on.

It turns out to have been two factors: My vision in the left eye has deteriorated further (the result of the cataract in that eye) but also, I have 3 diopters of astigmatism in the left eye and the daily disposable contact lenses I use only go up to 2.25 diopters of astigmatism correction, so my vision with the glasses I normally wear is better than with contacts.

I have a new contact lens prescription and have new lenses on order to carry me through these two weeks until the left eye is operated on. Once that is done, the two eyes will be much closer to the same.

So now I need reading glasses, and computer glasses, but the right eye does not need distance correction, and the left eye probably won't either, after they operate on it, though with the amount of astigmatism I have in the left eye, I could end up still needing glasses. I won't know until after the surgery on that eye, and actually it will be a couple of weeks or a month after the surgery before they do a refraction on my eyes to see what my vision has settled into.

It is promising. I have better vision in my right eye now than I had before even with glasses. I expect similar with the left eye. But I have two weeks now to deal with the vision imbalance, and I'll have to get used to needing a different kind of glasses. Before, my computer glasses worked for reading if I slid them down my nose away from my eyes. That no longer works now. I need separate glasses for computer and for reading, and will need other glasses if I want to be able to see very close up or read very small type, that I used to be able to read by taking off my glasses. It will all take getting used to.

But it had to be done because my vision was deteriorating rapidly, and I chose to deal with it before it got so bad that I couldn't see at all.

I have to use 2 kinds of eye drops four times a day, and another kind of eye drops three times a day, and two of the three sting like a sonofabitch. One of them I have to use for a week, another for two weeks, and the one that stings the most I have to use for four weeks. In two weeks, after the next operation, I'll have to start the same routine with the left eye.

 

Thanks, hkmb. The problem reading and watching a movie the day of my surgery was due to the eye guard, which blocked the right eye about 95% but not completely, and prevented my glasses from seating against my face properly, so the left eye was blurry.

Once they took the eye guard off, yesterday, I put a contact lens on the left eye and got a pair of reading glasses. I was dizzy at first because the contact lens does not correct the left eye as much as the surgery corrected the right eye, but I've more or less gotten accustomed to it. I went back in and got a refraction done on the left eye and found out two things: the left eye has deteriorated since I got that prescription and I now need another half diopter (-7.50 instead of -7.00) and I have 3 diopters of astigmatism in the left eye, and daily disposable lenses only go down to -2.25. So daily lenses cannot correct the left eye as well as glasses. I've ordered a new box at -7.50, -2.25 and that will be a bit of an improvement, and in two weeks I'll be done with them forever. Unless, of course, my astigmatism gets worse and I need correction again.

I also got another pair of "cheaters," this one for using the computer. So I now have reading glasses and computer glasses for use when I have the left contact lens in. Without the lens I can still use them by putting a patch over the left eye. Not a great solution, but tolerable for two weeks.

I listen to lots of podcasts:

Astronomy Cast ("Not only what we know, but how we know what we know" about astronomy.)

Democracy Now (an alternative news source).

Fresh Air (selectively; many of the subjects do not interest me, especially ones about pop music and tv or movies, but when the subject is current events it is very insightful).

Car Talk. (Needs no explanation.)

Planet Money (the economics of current events and everyday life).

Oh, No, Ross and Carrie ("When they make the claims, we go so you don't have to," a skeptical podcast that investigates fads and pseudoscience.)

Quackcast (Exposes of medical quackery.)

Rationally Speaking ("Exploring the borderlands between reason and nonsense." This is one of the most thought-provoking of all podcasts that I've found.)

Reasonable Doubts (Atheism. This is actually kind of mediocre, since the host is not as bright as he could be. The show focuses too much on arguing against extremist fundamentalists, and not enough discussing the irrationality of mainstream religions.)

Savage Love (Dan Savage answers questions about sex and relationships. The show always begins with a rant about some injustice somewhere.)

If you only try out one of the podcasts I'm recommending, this should be it:
Skeptics Guide to the Universe (The best all-around science and skepticism podcast. Highly recommended.)

Skeptoid (Short, ten to fifteen minute talks, usually on a single paranormal or illogical claim. Highly recommended.)

This American Life. (Human interest stories.)

The Thomas Jefferson Hour (Clay Jenkenson pretends to be Thomas Jefferson, and is interviewed by the show's host. These days the regular host is on sabbatical and there's a succession of guest hosts.)

All the above are free on iTunes and elsewhere. A couple of them have extended versions for paid subscribers. Most ask for donations.