ghost image after cataract surgery and toic multi focal implant?

[jrsdreece]

  I am very happy to have found this sight. I had cataract surgery on my left (dominant) eye and a Toric MFL was put in.last April. I also had lasik performed to correct astigmatism. From the first day when I came back for my follow up I told the Dr. that the lights looked like Christmas bell ornaments. That went in one year and out the other. He checked my eye and said it looked "OK". come back in a couple of weeks . It needs time to heal and the swelling to go down. I did not seem  to have a swelling issue and by the next appointment nothing had changed. I did not know what to call my problem so I said I have double vision but that was not the right description so the next appointment I was calling it a ghost image. The truth is I have 3 dominant images that have 3 or 4  more riding on them also. Then as I was "healing" it became more evident that I had an abnormal amount of glare, most evident with bright light like headlights. This starburst is like a dandelion with bright lights at the edge of the ghost which gives off more star glare and makes the light look like it is incased like a bagworm nest in a tree. This makes driving quite dangerous and (I make amateur  videos) makes focusing a camera quite difficult. I am a Metrology engineer and perform repair on electronic test equipment. These conditions make tracing and following wiring and  reading schematics very difficult. I have not had anything done to my right eye yet am waiting to see if my left eye can be fixed. The Dr. said he could put in a "piggy back " lens in but changed his mind and did a lasik procedure to correct the alignment of the lens that he said was 1.5 off center and should have been less than .5 off center. I expected this to correct my problems with this lens but after 5 months I still have the starburst and ghost images. My question is does this ring a bell (no pun intended) and can this be corrected?  Do I need to see a cornea specialist? Am I going to be disabled in this eye and should I have a non multifocal lens put in my right eye? Is the ghost image caused by a distorted surface of my cornea causing it to act like a prism? What are my options?

[JohnHaganMD]

If you will use the search feature, archives and scan several weeks of posting you will find this has been discussed many times before and has been a problem for others especially with multifocal IOLs.  The problem falls under the rubric "Dysphotopsia"

First I think it would be a total mistake to have a toric MF IOL put in your other eye or to proceed to do anything with the other unoperated eye until you work out problems with the operated eye. You may also need a different surgeon with the other eye given your experience.

Yes I would suggest you get at least 2 other opinions from cornea/refractive/cataract/IOL surgeons that are within an area you can drive to on a regular basis. In larger communities there are often ophthalmologist that specialize in post operative cataract/IOL complications.  The toric IOL does not have a high incidence of dysphotopsia unless off axis but a toric multifocal IOL is a highest risk grouping.