cataract lens choice

[maryanngi]

I'm scheduled to have cataract surgery in 2 weeks.  Will need the other eye done after that.
I'm still trying to get clear on best iol choice for me.  At last meeting with Dr, he recommended one eye reading distance and the other mid-range, computer distance, after I said I'd like to keep the ability to see clearly in the nearer ranges.  Does anyone have any experience with or input on this "blended lens" implants after cataract surgery?  How about one near and one distant iol?

I was hesitant to get multi-focal lenses after reading some of the potential problems on this forum, though this is what I thought I wanted at first. I was also concerned about seeing through 2 focal points at once, as I've been sensitive with eye-strain or feeling "off" when trying to focus in the middle distance with progressive lenses.  I feel more relaxed looking through single focus eye-glasses when I can.

Has anyone had experience with Technis multi-focal lens?  This is the one I'd get if I did go multi-focal.

I asked my doctor to call me today to answer more questions, and thought I'd reach out to you for input and /or good questions to ask my doctor to help me make the best choice.

[maryanngi]

I saw in another post that you use mini-monovision,  (I think it was in a post concerning Crystalens).  Isn't this what my surgeon was recommending with the near and arm's length distances?

Above you said you didn't recommend monovision if the person hadn't tried it before.

What are the main problems you are concerned with?

Could one do a trial before surgery of having one eye see near and the other at arm's length ( with glasses for distance) ? If so, how long would be a fair trial?

[AntonReiser]

But the outcome of the first implanted crystalenses was: they had only a width of acommodation of .5D.
Have they been implanted too early? Before they were fully developed?

New Crystalens have an addition of 2.5D, so they are bifocals, too.
And that solves this problem.

[Ray T Oyakawa, MD]

I recommend Crytalens for the following reasons:  1) at worse you will need readers 2) if you develop macular problems in the future you vision will not decrease as much as it would with a multifocal  3) No matter how well you hit the numbers, eliminate astigmatism, and control dry eyes, about 5% of patients will not neuro -adapt to multifocal IOLs and would want an exchange 4) Glare and halos similar to standard monofocal IOLs.  However, you need to see an experienced Crytalens doctor.


Dr. O.

[maryanngi]

Thanks.  What do you recommend to near sided people who want to preserve some close up vision?

maryanngi

[AntonReiser]

You normally don't get an overview of possible lenses and so you cannot compare lenses.
What I' ve found on the web is a book "Mastering Refractive IOLs" on Google Books:
http://books.google.com/books?id=R3lYDUkoxYoC
But it covers only "Premium-IOLs".

And there is a german web site: http://www.iol-test.org/
It discusses the physical properties of some lenses.
You can have it translated by google translate:
http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&ie=UTF-8&layout=1&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.iol-test.org%2F&sl=de&tl=en

That's all I found.

[Ray T Oyakawa, MD]

I never recommend this unless the patient had used monovision prior to onset of cataracts.

Dr. O.