correcting astigmatism with cataract surgery

[sligokathy]

My eyes have naturally turned to monovision over the last 6 years and my astigmatism has somewhat corrected itself so that I do not currently wear glasses.  My cataracts are now interferring with driving at night. My DR tells me that the cataracts have actually corrected my astigmatism and when I have the cataracts removed the astigmatism will be worse.  He is advising me to have the astigmatism correction done in my distant eye if I cannot aford to do both.
My problems is that over the last 5 years I have gotten used to not wearing glass and I don't want to go back to wearing bifocals.  Will I need bifocals to do paper work at my desk and then get up and help customers in the store. Given a choice I would rather wear glasses when I drive than on a daily basis when working. But do I even have that choice?  Will correcting the astigmatism in my nearsighted eye but not the farsighted eye mean that I will be able to read and do close work without glasses?

[sligokathy]

After checking with my optomitrist my records show that I have never had a astigmatism in my right eye so why would I suddenly have one after removing the cataract?

[sligokathy]

Thank you.  I know I didn't ask enough questions on my first visit so I will make an app. to see him again before the surgery on Jan 21st.  
He told me what he thought would be best and I didn't really question this until I got home and started thinking about what my days would be like if I had to start wearing bifocals again.

[Ray T Oyakawa, MD]

Correcting the astigmatism in both eyes will give you the best chance of not needing glasses.  However, if the astigmatism is minimal in the near eye you should be able to read ok.  You need to discuss the amount and type of astigmatism with your doctor.

Dr. O.