On the top thread of ‘Another great hunt with Alan Vincent’, 470 Eddy responded with his success with his cataract surgery. I too have had the same proceedure/experience, so instead of adding on to the thread , I thought the topic was so common for all of us ‘old guys’ that I would start a new thread and let others chime in on their experiences with the procedure. If you haven’t had this procedure already, you most likely will, if you live long enough. I had mine recently in the last two months at age 73.

I’ve worn glasses since the 4th grade, and got contacts when they were ‘new’ at age (18). I’ve always been upgraded with stronger lenses/glasses as I aged and my eyes progressively got worse. On my last visit to the optometrist, I could not see the giant ‘E’ on the top of the eye chart, the single letter on the chart the size of a football, without my glasses or contacts. Being through this routine for many years, I tossed out a guess of ‘E’ after contemplating it for about ten seconds! My optometrist looked at me like I was an alien from outer space. She went to the next line with (3) letters about the size of a can of Coke. Couldn’t even guess what they were. She said my vision was about 20/2,000. Another optometrist who checked my eyes after the cataract surgery, suggested she may have been off a bit, and that it was probably 20/1,500. You read those correctly dear reader. ‘Normal’ good eyes are 20/20. One can still drive legally with 20/40 vision, but at 20/60 or worse, corrective lenses are required. A friend of mine said his vision had deteriorated to 20/200, and I said, ‘oh, you’ve got good vision!’ My optometrist said she could not help me any more, and that I needed cataract surgery. My brain went crazy.

Eye surgery? That implies knives cutting into your eyeball. I can’t stand an eyelash in my eye! But I couldn’t see anything anymore, so I conceded like a POW turning in his rifle to the enemy.

I imagined a shot in my eye to deaden the pain of surgery, to be about as bad as the surgery itself. Then the sutures to close up the operation. No thanks. But blindness is not a walk in the park either. I submitted to the inevitable.

As 470 Eddy said, it was no big deal at all. Both surgeries for my eyes took 22 minutes total each (two weeks apart) once I was in the operating room. No shots. No sutures. Only eye drops. I can’t understand how eye drops can totally take away ALL of the pain of eye surgery, but it did. I felt NOTHING.

I figured a weeks stay in the hospital to recover. Nope. They wheeled me out to my car after the operation, and my wife drove me home. The surgeon said he wanted to see me that afternoon back at his office to check the results. Perfect! I did the same thing for the other eye two weeks later, with the exact same results.

After four weeks I returned to my optometrist for a checkup of the results. The first chart he put up was for 20/20 vision. I aced it. He said, would you like to try the 20/15 chart? Affirmative! I read the smallest line on it. I was thrilled! I said, “Let’s try the 20/10 chart!” He said, ‘it doesn’t go that low.’ By the way, people with great vision have 20/20 vision. 20/15 vision simply means that as far as a 20/20 person can see sharply, one with 20/15 can see (5) yards further sharply, as I understand what I read on the internet.

I know that the age of people on AR are mostly ‘senior’. Like 470 Eddy said, cataract surgery is nothing to fear or worry about. It’s painless, and the results will astound you! They asked me if colors looked more vibrant too? I said “YES!”. They just smiled. Removing the cloudy cataract let the colors shine through. I spent the next two weeks in amazement looking at single leaves on the top of 50’ trees in perfect focus, when the whole tree before was just a green/brown blob. I was gobsmacked. It was like being reborn.

If you need this procedure, do not fear it. It will change your life. Painlessly. Go for it!!

Folks,

What surefire7 said. Personally I had cataract surgery about 10 years ago on both eyes at the same time. The IV in the top of my hand was the only pain I had. In my case I think it was about 6 months before neon signs looked right but I could see an immediate improvement. I'm 75 and I can drive legally without my glasses that I've worn since the 6th grade. Don't put it off. It's really a yawn!

Mark

Only problem that I had was when I looked through a scope. The right side of the horizontal crosshair was always high and the left side low. I thought it was the scope at first but I have a lot of scopes and they all appear the same/ It eventually lessened but never went away. WEIRD HUH!

And yes----the vertical crosshair was always straight up and down.

Hip

I had really bad cataracts, I had lens replacement about 5 years ago (Crystal lens), unfortunately, I did have to have injections in each eye…not the least bit pleasant, but what the hell, couldn’t see so well prior and have 20/20 afterwards, seeing colors (like on dashboard of truck that I’d not seen before). However, my eyes are pretty light sensitive but sunglasses take dare of that. My best friend recently had same replacement with no injections.

Just do it. Great eyesight is with in your reach! It’s life changing!

I’m really looking forward to getting it done. Lousy vision sucks!

quote:

Originally posted by DLS:
I’m really looking forward to getting it done. Lousy vision sucks!

Are you doing this soon?

I had both eyes done in October/November last year and the result is incredible. I do have to read glasses for reading though

I was considering this but one PH stated he could not see the open sights of his rifle so are we talking about long vision?

quote:

Originally posted by fairgame:
I was considering this but one PH stated he could not see the open sights of his rifle so are we talking about long vision?

Andrew - Long answer below, but in my case, I don't think it made much difference in my ability to use iron sights - it wasn't great before (with glasses), and is a little better now (without glasses). But the fundamental difficulty - the inability to focus near and far at the same time is similar.

Long answer about my experience:

The interesting thing about lens replacement surgery is that you get to choose the lenses you want. I wore glasses all my life to correct for distance (being what we call here "near-sighted"). Later, (in my 40s) I wore bi-focals, but could always read without my glasses. Even later (in my 50s) I wore the bi-focals, but at my desktop computers with dual monitors (30" / 75 cm away from my eyes), I started wearing computer glasses set to that focus length.

I got cataracts surgery just before I turned 60. I chose what they call "mono vision" - that is the right eye set to focus at infinity and the left eye set to focus about 18"/45 cm. I also had some astigmatism corrected. I can now get by most of the time without any corrective glasses, EXCEPT, since I had the surgery I started finding several cases where another pair of glasses was helpful:

• I found that it's much easier to use a set of computer glasses, which allows both eyes to focus at a distance of 30". I wear these on a daily basis, working from my computer; one pair for the office; one for home.
  
• I have a couple pairs of readers that improve my focus close up, but I hardly ever use them. For almost all reading, I don't use any glasses. Still, once in a while, trying to focus on something delicate, they're useful to have.
  
• I have a pair of "night driving glasses", because I found when I was driving long distances at night, my brain would forget to just use my right eye, and headlights would get blurry. For just driving around town at night, I don't need glasses.
  
• I decided it would be nice to have a pair of prescription safety glasses, for working in the shop. In the end, I decided to have these made as bifocals that I could wear in the shop or for chain-sawing, etc. I also had the auto-dimming coating added. After I got them, I decided they were also useful for bicycling, so they get worn a little more often.
  

So, even though my wife notes that I have more pairs of glasses than ever before, I really only use the computer glasses for multiple hours each day, and the safety glasses when I need to protect my eyes. The other pairs have been barely used in the last three years.

quote:

Originally posted by surefire7:

quote:

Originally posted by DLS:
I’m really looking forward to getting it done. Lousy vision sucks!

Are you doing this soon?

I hope to before going buffalo hunting in May.

Get multifocals lenses
I did that, life is so much better without glasses
Had hard time with iron sights, now I’m back baby

quote:

I’m really looking forward to getting it done. Lousy vision sucks!
I hope to before going buffalo hunting in May

Dan, lousy vision does suck, when I had my lens replacement I was told no “big” guns, or boxing , for several months.
Definitely worth doing though, can read and see iron sights as well as good distance vision.

I had it done in my left eye a few years ago.
Nothing to it. Major improvement in my vision.

No one has mentioned light adjustable lens surgery - it is relatively new and uses a polymer lens whose molecular structure can be changed with UV light. In a nutshell, they implant a lens and after three weeks, they measure your prescription. You then get zapped by UV light. They can do up five treatments, but most are done in two.

I have severe astigmatism and my eye surgeon said I had two choices:

1. Get normal lenses.
A. My insurance would cover the cost
B. I would probably have to wear glasses to see 20/20.
 2. Get LAL lenes
A. See 20/20 or better
B. Cost would be about 10K out of pocket
C. Your vision will be imperfect for 4-6 weeks and you have to wear glasses to filter out UV light

I went with LALs. It sounds like something out of a science fiction movie. In Feb 2022 I had my ankle replaced. Long story short, I broke one of the pegs that went into my tibia; on a hunt in NZ in 2023 I was in severe pain. I woke up every day unable to walk without limping. So in Feb 2024 my ortho redid the procedure, this time using an implement similar to those used in hip replacements (a conical device inserted into my tibia). Since I was going to have to keep weight off my right foot for six weeks, I figured getting LAL at the same time was a no-brainer. A week after my foot surgery I had the left lens replaced. A week later I had the right replaced. Two weeks later, I had my first left eye light treatment. A week after than, my right lens. In short, I had two treatments with both eyes. I now see 20/15.

I always hated wearing glasses, preferring to wear contacts. But contacts and hunting, especially when sleeping in a tent, are not ideal for the simple fact your hands have to be really clean and you absolutely need light in the dark to put them in and take them out. Last weekend I went on a backpack trip in the Grand Canyon, down Hermit to Monument Creek, then Tonto to Indian Gardens, then up. It was at least my 30th backcountry trip, but the first when I didn't have to deal with contacts or glasses. Super happy!

Cataract surgery is one of the few I hear very few complaints by patients about afterwards.

It is amazing what they can do to help vision now.

I've had cataract surgery on both eyes, preceded by Vitrectomy surgery on both eyes as well. All were painless. The Vitrectomy surgeries were to remove masses of floaters in both eyes. The surgeon told me after Vitrectomies, that I would require cataract surgeries a year later.