Riding with eyeglasses

[BlueDrifter]

I am truly lucky that I can tolerate it because for me, it means no glasses. But for those who can’t tolerate it, the extended depth of field set to a mini-monovision has been very successful.

Full monovision is when the difference between two eyes is 2 diopters. Mini-monovision is when the difference between the two eyes is less than 1 diopter. I think our eyes can normally differ by half a diopter so mini-monovision works for most. And you have a choice of whether you want the additional assist to be for near or far vision. Mini-monovision means you have pretty good all-around vision, but you might need distance for night driving or you might need readers for fine print.

What I am surprised about is how many docs don’t tell/offer their patients this option.

[BlueDrifter]

The rules for aftercare were to avoid dust and pressure and water.

You can wash your face, but avoid water in the eyes. I used a wash cloth and didn’t face the shower full blast. No jacuzzi or swimming for a month due to water pressure on the eyes. You can wear makeup after a week, including makeup removers, etc.

Keep head above heart is the guideline for pressure – so you can kneel to care for your cats and dogs, but no bending over from the waist or touching toes. Likely no grooming, even if you didn’t have any dust.

Light exercise is fine, but no exercises that cause valsalva (breath holding) or strain: no yoga, plilates. You could ride if there was no dust and you were assured you wouldn’t fall off.

I did not groom or ride for a week. I brought goggles, but didn’t wear them all the time as it wasn’t dusty all the time. I did wear wrap-around sunglasses if I wasn’t wearing goggles – the surgeon provided some free of charge, very dark, and they didn’t look like the old cataract sunglasses, lol.

[BlueDrifter]

Yeah, “ripe” is a cataract term. Who knew?

My two cataract consults said that was the new standard of care. They realized that not all cataracts got thick and yellow, and thin/translucent could be just as much of an interference. I am in SoCal.

Which doc told her they were not ripe enough? Ophthamologist or optometrist? My optometrist would have said “not ripe enough” as he didn’t really see them, but luckily he was the one who pushed me to a cataract evaluation.

I would definitely get a second opinion with a true cataract evaluation ($300 if not covered). During the evaluation they do several tests and scans. It isn’t just a simply visual.

[BlueDrifter]

Another point here, and sorry if I am changing the focus of the thread.

One can get monofocal lenses, trifocal lenses, or extended field lenses. Only the first one, monofocal, is covered by Medicare insurance. The others are an upgrade and not covered by insurance. However there is one extended field lens called Eyhance which Medicare will cover. It is relatively new. And what it does is give you a little more near vision with a very slight degradation of distance vision (and I mean, very slight). To me, it is better than straight monofocal if you need to save money and want to get a little more near vision.

Trifocal lenses (Panoptix) are made with concentric rings and if your pupil doesn’t line up perfectly, you will get halos and starbursts at night. That is the main con of these lenses aside from their price. (You will also get halos and starbursts if you don’t get your astigmatism corrected with eithe LRI or use of toric lenses.)

The extended field (Vivity) are also quite nice, a slight decrease in distance vision for an increase in near vision. They are like Eyhance, except better range – however they are not covered by insurance.

I sure hope people do their homework though – there are a lot of options.

[Moonboots]

The most life changing dumb tip I’ve learned:
If you can’t find your glasses, open your phone’s camera and look at the screen. The camera is able to focus on things that are far away, so what looks blurry through my eyes is crisp and clear on my phone’s screen.