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Cataracts

CaddmannQ

CaddmannQ

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I'm 62 years old and for the past couple years I have been putting off cataract surgery.

I finally found my testicles between my legs, and today I went in and had the left eye done.

My eyes have been so poor, for so long, that the thing that I dreaded more than anything else in the world was my eyesight getting even worse.

I remember my mom having the surgery over 20 years ago and she came home with a tiny circle of baseball stitches around her eye. It was the finest handiwork I had ever seen in my life!

Now it's all done with the help of a computerized laser microscope device that does the deed. There's some prep for the surgery starting a few days before, but the surgery itself only takes 10 minutes on the table.

I am extremely fortunate that I have Blue Cross, which is covering the whole thing aside from the very minor co-payments, and they're going to get billed about $4500 per eye. These are probably California Boutique prices I know. They had some awesome equipment I'll tell you that.

Anyhow it's been almost 11 hours since the surgery and my left eye is doing pretty well already. They dilate your eye about 10 times so it takes a long time for that to wear off.

I will still need reading glasses, but my new permanent implant lens is working, and my left eye distance vision has not been this good since I was about 12 years old.

If the doctor likes the results tomorrow he will do the right eye in a week or so.

My night vision in my left eye is much better than I am used to. The cataracts were making my sight very dim.

Driving should be a lot less tiresome for me, but I am really looking forward to see what the improvement in my vision will do for my target shooting.

With a high-powered scope I could still see the bullseye, but there was so much distortion from my own eyes. Accurate windage and elevation Corrections become a struggle, even with a high quality scope.

Anyhow, I have a question, which is:

How many of you guys have cataracts and/or have actually had cataract removal surgery? How did it affect your shooting?
 
Well the jury is still out as it's been less than a day, and I am now learning to deal with a difficult task of having two eyes which are wildly different in capabilities.

The right eye will focus on micro printing up close, and anything up to a foot from my nose, and then it gets fuzzy.

My left eye focus is very strange. I can't read anything closer than 3 feet to my face. It focuses much better than before from 3 feet out to Infinity, and I can read ordinary print, with a light lens.

I popped the left lens out of my eye glasses and made a pinhole camera there so now my eyes will focus well enough to sand on my new shelf or possibly drive a car. Without my glasses I can see to walk around, but I keep closing my right eye because it won't focus without glasses.

I wouldn't try to drive like that, either way. I know how well this is going to work now pretty much once they get my other eye fixed and I'm happy about it all at this point. But until they finish and stabilize and I get my new glasses some 6 or 8 weeks in the future I'm going to be struggling a bit to see what I'm doing.

!
 
I'm glad it went so well for you and I hope it goes just as well when they do your other eye.

I'm 64 and have early stage cataracts and the beginnings of macular degeneration. Early this year, I was diagnosed with asteroid hyalosis in my right eye. Basically the same as "floaters" in the eye, mine had formed into stringy chains that resulted in a constant cloud or shadow in that eye. In May, I had a vitrectomy performed at UT Southwestern in Dallas. In a vitrectomy, they suck out all of the "jelly" in the eye (called the vitreous) and replace it with saline. The good news is that, like you, I found the procedure to be a breeze and my vision is now bright and clear, but I still need my glasses. The down side is that a vitrectomy frequently speeds up the development of cataracts.

I'm ever so grateful that the VA picked up the whole tab.

Getting old just plain sucks, but it still beats the alternative. ;)
 
Pawpaw, nobody in the world has mentioned anything to me about a vitrectomy or the possibility that such a thing exists.

Very interesting indeed.

I went in today for my follow-up visit and Scheduled the right eye for next week. Everything is looking good so far.

I'm pretty certain that my left eye hasn't been this powerful since I was about 12 years old. It wasn't 20/20 then and it's not 20/20 now but I can drive without glasses if I close my right eye.
 
Glad to hear things are going well. I am 70 and so far my old eyes have held up well. I have worn glasses for as long as I can remember, but no other problems at all.

This getting old is not for sissies or the faint of heart.
 
Everything seems to be getting better with the left eye but I think I have about 99% of the vision that it's going to achieve without glasses. I feel like maybe it will improve a little more over the next week but they say the eyes heal fast.

Having monovision is kind of a headache, and driving with it is kind of like a bad acid trip unless you cover the right eye and take off the glasses or cover the left eye and put on the glasses. In any event I find it very uncomfortable to drive with just one eye.

I'm thinking that in 9 more days I'll be able to go into the drug store and buy a pair of reading glasses for $10 and it will be all I need. Normally I pay about $400 for a pair of glasses, if they have titanium frames. $300 if steel. My prescription requires special blanks so it always takes an extra week to get my glasses.

But after struggling with my eyesight for nearly 60 years I think this is going to be an amazing change.
 
They have come along way, my grandfather said when he had them done he laid with his head between sandbags to keep him from moving too much for days while it healed
 
My Dad had it done a couple years ago and it helped quite a bit. But he developed quite a bit of scar tissue over the last year or so and it was blurring/dimming his vision again terribly. He recently underwent laser surgery to remove the built up scar tissue and he's doing much better now. The laser surgery was painless and recovery was quick with little to no discomfort.

I don't know how common it is for scar tissue to form so aggressively but I guess it's something to watch for. The eye surgeon said if he left it any longer, the laser surgery wouldn't have been an option.

Glad you're having it done Cad, gonna be like a kid again!!! Lol
 
Actually I wore glasses since about the 1st grade. I only remember a few scattered bits of my life before that time. Times work good then. Dad got a promotion & a better job, going from SAC to NORAD.

That was the year I got an erector set, and I built my first electric motor. I got a punching bag an electric robot and a bicycle.

I cannot think back to a time when I was not wearing glasses.
 
I didn't start wearing glasses until after I retired from the USAF. It was quite a shock when I realized I couldn't see thing as close or as far as I used to.

Prior to that, driving down the road, I would read a sign and everyone else in the car would ask, "What sign?"
 
Well with my eyesight there was no way I was going to join the airforce.
 
By the way this dealing with monovision is a totally weird deal. Most of the time I can go around with both eyes open, but I have to close my left eye to make a left turn in the truck.

I'm glad this only has to go on for another week. On Pearl Harbor day I go back and get the other one done.

That's not a good omen is it . . .

BUT, by December 8th I think I'll be a lot happier
 
Pear Harbor day could be a very good omen. After all, it was probably Japan's biggest blunder ever.

They failed to get our carriers, it put the Navy on high alert, united the country, and woke the sleeping giant that was our industrial complex.
 
My eye doctor said I was a candidate for cataract surgery. That was two years ago. An issue I am having is, when I look through a rifle scope with my right eye, close my left eye, and concentrate on the target.....my vision will black out and I can't see the target. It takes a few seconds to happen. Has anyone had this problem? Caddmann, glad to hear you are progressing well.
Another thought on growing old is this one:
Growing Old.jpg
 
Rico that sounds like macular degeneration to me.

At least, that is sort of how my eye doctor describes it. He was a high scoring Target shooter back in college.
 
CaddmannQ said:
Rico that sounds like macular degeneration to me.

At least, that is sort of how my eye doctor describes it. He was a high scoring Target shooter back in college.
Click to expand...

:doh:Say it ain't so. My wife's mother has that.
Reckon I better go see my eye doctor.
 
It's a very good idea for everyone, especially the 40+ crowd, to take AREDS 2 vitamins to help prevent macular degeneration.

http://www.preservision.com/products/preservision-areds-2-formula?&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI8dj54prs1wIVT7bACh1N4gEqEAAYASAAEgJV4_D_BwE&utm_campaign=PreserVision NonBranded - AREDs Vitamins&utm_medium=Paid Search&utm_source=google&utm_content=AREDS 2 General - Exact

My retina surgeon put me on it before I had my surgery in May.

You don't have to go with Bausch & Lomb, but I don't want to half-step with my eyesight.
 
I took Areds and then, I took Areds 2.

Then my retinologist advised me to take Macuhealth by Macuvision.

Unfortunately the darn stuff is so expensive nobody carries it and you have to order the stuff.

Evidently it has about 10 times as much lutein and zeaxanthin and mezo-zeaxanthin.

(Ask a doctor guys . . . I don't know if I'm spelling any of this stuff right.)

But that Macuhealth is about $100 a bottle. I hope that means that it's working.
 
Rico said:
:doh:Say it ain't so. My wife's mother has that.
Reckon I better go see my eye doctor.
Click to expand...

Remember I'm not a doctor. Don't freak out until one of them looks in your eye and tells you. Then you can freak out.

But everybody has that black spot in the middle of the eye. When you have macular degeneration it gets bigger and bigger until you can't see.

I've had several full laser scans of my eyeballs and my retinas are holding on, but both of my parents had eye problems.

Mom had cataract surgery way back when and had pressure in her right eye that cause them to put in a vent. After three surgeries she lost her sight in that eye anyway.

Dad had a partial retinal detachment that caused them to put a band around his eyeball to tighten things up. Evidently it worked but it bothered him for the rest of his life because they can never take that back off.

So far my retinal problems are minor and mostly related to concussion. If I quit beating myself over the head they probably will survive.
 
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