Crystalens Monovision Presbyopia Issues

Three months ago I had Crystalens placed in both eyes. My right eye is the dominate eye and there is little change. I was clear in the distance before and couldn’t read up close. It’s about the same now with maybe a slight improvement up close. This is certainly not worth the $10,000.00 out of pocket. Now the left eye is a different story. It’s not bad at about 32 inches but becomes very blurry after about six feet. Before the surgery I could see clearly in the distance but now hardly at all. I now have very bad monovision which causes mild headaches every time I try to read or watch TV. Prior to Crystalens I looked into monovision with a prominent doctor in Newport Beach. I tried it with the glasses and hated it. Before and after this procedure I was told it was definitely not monovision and yet I’m having a total monovision experience. It’s been about ten weeks now since the implant and I was told it will adjust and could take a year to do so. There has been zero improvement in ten weeks and I’m wondering if anything is really going to change. I was supposedly through with all appointments but had I to schedule one for next week. I’m going to ask the doctor about removing it which I understand is difficult to do. It’s unlikely that I can hold out for a year with this monovision hoping that it will adjust.
Does anyone have any suggestions?

[JodieJ]

I'm not an eye care professional, but based on my personal experience with monovision contacts as well as what I've read about monovision with IOLs, it does not take anywhere near 10 weeks to adjust.  Monovision involves correcting one eye for distance (plano) and the other eye for near vision (about -2 diopters).  This type of correction gave me the sense of having continuously good vision at all distances.  Monovision will not work with glasses; you'll just get bad vision.  

Other people posting on this forum have complained about their inability to adjust to monovision, but what they had was NOT monovision (which involves about a 2 diopter difference between the eyes, more or less.)  One woman with Crystalenses had one eye mildly farsighted and the other moderately nearsighted--a combination that no one could adjust to.  If your current surgeon is telling you to wait a year for improvement, it's time for you to get a second opinion from a different surgeon.  Perhaps a laser vision enhancement would solve your problems.    

[Michael J Kutryb, MD]

I suggest you have a talk with the doctor explaining  your dissatisfaction and talk about having LASIK or PRK to possibly improve your distance vision.  Then of course your near vision will drop dramatically.  The crystalens seems to add about 0.5 diopter of added near vison from what my research shows.  For a fair compaison, look in the drugstore at the reading glasses and you will see that the lowerst power they come in is 1.25 (very low power) and you would get less than half of that effect.  This is why most surgeon purposely try to make the non-dominant eye a little nearsighted to help with the near vision  - so in many cases it is the actual nearsighted result that gives much of the near vision and not the very weak,  true accommodative effect.

MJK MD

[fishpal]

i had crystalens implant 4 days ago and having blurring and also indoor glare problems. wonder how widespread these problems are? sounds like we both need second opinions

[JodieJ]

Dr. Kutryb, I'm truly astonished by how little accommodation the older model Crystalens provides per your research results.  Gaining 0.5 diopters of near vision is so little that there's no way to justify the thousands of dollars in "premium" lens fees.  Considering the increased likelihood of post-surgery problems (e.g., glare),  why even consider the older Crystalens?  I certainly hope the latest version gives patients more benefit for their money.