Cataract & ReSTORE Surgery

[californiadon]

Back in May 2008,
Cost of Restore/Rezoom Eye Surgery
Answered by
Michael J Kutryb, MD - Ophthalmology, Cataract Surgery, glaucoma, Laser Vision Correct
Kutryb Eye Institute - Titusville
by JodieJ, May 28, 2008 10:16PM
To: rhawkins2821
You say that you have only the start of cataracts.  Maybe the questions you should be asking is whether you'd want Restor/ReZoom surgery now if it were free (or if they paid you.)  Seriously, there are many problems these multifocal lenses.  (Just read through the recent threads and the archives of this site.)  There are much better lenses on the horizon--why not wait until they are available, since you don't need surgery now.

What are the "much better lenses" available two years later in 2010????????

[JodieJ]

Yarrow, congratulations on your excellent results with ReStor.  People with no astigmatism and small pupils tend to have the best results with this IOL.  An experienced surgeon also helps.  

[yarrow]

For most of my life, I have been farsighted with otherwise excellent vision, requiring readers only for presbyopia as time went by.  Then one eye developed an evil, centrally located little cataract that grew rapidly, and in short order I could not read except with the brightest light. No prescription lenses gave me good vision, of course, and ultimately, it was obvious that my right eye was rapidly becoming non-functional except as a rough sensor of the presence of light.

Two days ago, my surgeon exchanged my cataract with the reStor D1, and I have to admit to being amazed by what I can see now.  In spite of some corneal swelling, I can use the computer without glasses. I read the newspaper without glasses. I can read the captioning on the rather small TV across the room without glasses. At the gym or a restaurant, I can see the distinguishing features of every face in the room without glasses.  I can see the oranges on the tree in my back yard, some forty feet from the window, as bright  individual fruits rather than as strangely doubled globs.  I can see the individual pines on the skyline of the mountains behind our house, some two miles away.  When I drive at night (yup, can do that, too), there are no halos--none--and the glare from oncoming lights is far, far less than I experienced with the cataract as it was.  I have not experienced any neuroadaptation that I am aware of.  And this is all before the slightly troublesome swelling of the cornea has gone down.

Obviously, every patient has different needs and expectations, but my surgeon is a smart, experienced guy who measured my eyes seven ways from Sunday, listened to what I hoped for with surgery, and chose the right lens for me.

I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

[JodieJ]

Hey, you have to give technology time to advance, but here's a non-professional opinion.  There is a new aspheric model of ReStor out and the Tecnis multifocal is also available.  (Forget ReZoom--too many problems.)  But all multifocals offer a (slightly) degraded quality of vision, and some people never neuroadapt to the glare and halos.  Accommodating IOLs like the Crystalens can provider the same crisp vision as a monofocal IOL, with far fewer problems with glare and halos than a multifocal.  Best case scenario:  The newest model Crystalens can provide excellent distance and intermediate vision and some near vision.  You'd only need glasses for prolonged reading and seeing small print.  (You could probably get similar results with aspheric monofocal IOLs set for mini-monovision.)