I had cataract surgery on one eye over 10 years ago and chose multifocal IOL. The result was nearly 20/20. Last year I had the other eye done also with multifocal IOL from the same lens maker and has got 20/20 vision. Both eyes work well together.. I don't experience much glaring during night driving. No more glasses and reading (including small prints) is a joy as I read every day. I always wanted the multifocals and I’m glad I chose them.

I chose single seven years ago. I still need glasses for reading and computer (and astigmatism correction, although I don't recall that astigmatism was correctable then as it is now). I figured I could pay for spectacle updates for years on what the upgrade cost at the time. Seems not really so much considering the outrageous cost of glasses nowadays. My prescription has changed three times since surgery, although only slightly each time. The pair I got after surgery hasn't ever been satisfactory, although I went cheap without antiglare (or transition for sun). My old pair from *before* surgery work best but they're in horrible condition, and the "new" pair recently caught a scratch. I'm waiting for the next yearly exam within the next two months to drop $ on a new pair. I wish now that I had opted for an upgrade. I believe it would have been better regards to reading and computer.

I opted for mid range. My doctor and I opted for a Toric lens because of astigmatism in that eye. I wanted the best distance vision but needed moderately closer vision for the things I do. (yes, it's all about horses LOL) Since I have profound hearing loss, vision is especially important to me for my safety. So that was his suggestion, when I asked what eh would do in my situation and lifestyle. I now have 20/20 distance in that eye and can read without glasses other than fine print. No halos, night driving or other issues at all. My outcome was better than expected because my ophthalmologist warned me that since I had prior Lasik on that eye it might not be 100 % successful. My other eye is showing more pronounced signs of cataract now and I plan to get it down in the late fall when I am done with lake and river swimming.

I had cataract surgery about 2 years ago. I had premium IOLs that are designed to improve near and long-distance vision. One vision for each eye. No need for any glasses. This is the top tier surgery that medicare does not pay for. It has the advantage of being able to go back to surgeon in office 2 times and getting your vision tweaked, and third time it is set permanently. My vision is each eye is perfect. Your brain blends the two visions together for a ideal vision. My only problem, was with the second eye surgery, my eye developed a possible allergy to the betadine used. Lots of Benadryl and numbing drops fixed me up in a few minutes.

I have monofocal IOLs set for near (-2.0), since I spend much of my day reading or on the computer. Having been highly myopic all my life (-8 in both eyes before the surgeries), I'm thrilled with my vision. Check out the cataract surgery subreddit for some really good information from both patients and cataract surgeons.

I habe monovision — one eye for distance and one for near. I am not happy with it. I recommend that anyone considering this try it with contact lenses first. Not everyone can adjust to it.

I recently had cataract surgery and got the Light Adjustable Lenses (LAL). I now have perfect vision -- maybe the best I've ever had. I chose those lenses because I had Lasik surgery 25 years ago and some scarring made it hard for the opthalmologist to predict the outcome if I'd gotten regular lenses. I'm glad I chose the LAL, but it was a long, drawn out process. It involved three UV adjustments, plus two lock-in proceedures. Surgery was April 16th and 17th, and the final lock-in was June 24th. During that time, I had to be super careful to wear big, ugly UV protective glasses outdoors, and also indoors if I was near a window. I'm still using lots of eyedrops throughout the day to promote faster healing, at least until my check-up in September.

A word of advice -- shop carefully for your doctor. I had a bad gut feeling about the surgeon whom my original eye doctor recommended. I researched and found someone better -- and it turned out, he charged less that HALF what the first doctor wanted. (Still expensive, though!)

I should have added that you really need to check out the surgeons. Several friends have had a terrible time with cataract surgery. It pays to ask around. It seems to be two different surgeons in this area that are having patients with the most trouble.

I had premature cataract surgery (right eye) several years ago. (Because I'd been told I needed it by a surgeon I later learned did it on *everyone* old enough to have Medicare.) I'd planned to do both eyes, but when I saw the teeny difference in this eye, I cancelled sugery on the left eye. The only improvement was distance; no 'brighter colors' or 'more clarity'. Only then did I learn that I'd been given*magnification* in the right eye. No wonder I had a hard time adjusting.

I've been reading with my unoperated left eye and using the operated eye for distance. The mgnification has been annoying and unwelcome. Now my left eye is indeed clouded, and surgery is actually warranted.

IDK how often magnification is standard. I'd just like to have been told.

Wow, Chisue, it is incredible that the choices weren’t explained to you and that you weren’t asked for your preference! Thanks for the heads-up and I hope your left-eye surgery goes smoothly.

Wow, I posted this on the 3rd (2 days ago) and saw it immediately after, but then it disappeared. Suddenly, today I'm seeing it again, with quite a few responses! The oddities of Houzz, I guess.

ChiSue, I'm sorry that you had such an awful experience. Maybe when you get your left eye done, you can talk to the ophthalmologist about removing the IOL in your right eye and replacing it with one that better suits your needs.

I know that I do have mild astigmatism, and that's a small part of the reason that I will be having laser cataract surgery - because the laser surgery corrects (gets rid of) my level of astigmatism. The other, major, part of the reason for laser surgery is that it is more precise, which is always a good thing.

I do know with absolute certainty that I do NOT want distance vision for one eye and near vision for the other eye. Been there, done that with contacts and it was a disaster that I do not want to repeat. I've worn true bifocal contacts (distance and near vision in each lens, just like with bifocal glasses) for many years and I am so used to being able to see at all distances without glasses that I really do not want to have to rely on glasses at all.

The nonreliance on glasses does not extend to sunglasses. My eyes are green, and as such are more sensitive to light than brown eyes. I've always had to wear sunglasses when I'm outside of the house - prescription sunglasses before I switched to contacts (and that was over 50 years ago), and nonprescription sunglasses since then. I wear Maui Jim sunglasses, which block 100% of UVA and UVB rays, and they also protect against HEV light.

Jupidupi, I remember reading your post about the LAL lenses. I think that's fascinating, but, unfortunately, the ophthalmologist who will be doing my surgery doesn't use them. At least, not to my knowledge, but I will ask.

Does anyone here have the ClearVision 3 or the PanOptix IOLs?

" I do know with absolute certainty that I do NOT want distance vision for one eye and near vision for the other eye. Been there, done that with contacts and it was a disaster that I do not want to repeat "

That has never made any sense to me at all as a reasonable approach with contact lenses.

Elmer, the "one eye for distance and one eye for near vision" thing with contacts is recommended by a lot of ophthalmologists for patients to "try out" before committing to monovision IOLs after cataract surgery. The dominant eye is used for distance and the nondominant eye for near vision. Your brain is supposed to merge the images so that both eyes see properly.

When I had tried monovision with contacts, it was years before any cataracts began to develop in my eyes. After one day, I knew that I would never, ever tolerate it. My right eye was dominant, and had the distance vision contact lens. My left eye had the near vision contact lens. I had an appointment during the workday when I got the new lenses. That evening, when I was driving home from work, I was on a two-lane road through some agricultural fields. There was a very slow-moving farm vehicle in front of me that I needed to pass. I leaned out the side window to check the oncoming traffic. With my left eye, I could see traffic in the distance which appeared to be significantly far enough away to give me plenty of time to pass the farm vehicle. It was only after I pulled into the other lane when the vision of both of my eyes came together that I realized the oncoming traffic was much too close. Because I had accelerated to pass the farm vehicle as I pulled into the other lane, I couldn't just slide back into "my" lane - I had to "floor it" to get completely past that vehicle and barely made it back into my lane in time. Thankfully, I still had my "old" contacts and went back to them and never wore the monovision contacts again.

But, Elmer, if monovision has never made any sense to you at all as a reasonable approach with contact lenses, how can it make any sense as a reasonable approach with IOLs after cataract surgery? Yet, many patients choose it.

A lot depends on how much monovosion. These days many people target mini-monovision, meaning roughly 1 diopter or less difference between the eyes, whereas in the past it was 2+ diopters. That way you can get, say, clear distance and intermediate vision, and have less need for glasses than if you simply targeted distance. But you do lose some depth perception, and some people's brains just can't adapt.

Does anyone here have the ClearVision 3 or the PanOptix IOLs?

I have the PanOptix, they are made with UV and blue light filtering material although I do wear sunglasses for added protection. Insurance will not cover these lenses but monovision type.

Yes, Palisades_, I do know that insurance will not cover the premium lenses, and I know that it will not cover the laser surgery, either. Insurance will only cover the standard, manual cataract surgery and the single vision IOLs. I was told that my out-of-pocket will be approximately $4,700 per eye for the laser surgery and premium multifocal IOLs, and I am totally ok with that.

How do you like your PanOptix IOLs?

I love these lenses they just feel natural. I would highly recommend them. My surgeons also specified reading power for the lenses so I can read small letters and fine print with ease. There is some hallo effect if I look up at a street light at night but that does not interfere with my night vision when driving. A good surgeon is very important. Hope you’ll have a great outcome.

Palisades_ I'm really glad to see that you're happy with the PanOptix! I only found out about the Clear Vision 3 IOLs very recently, and those would be my absolute preference because they are more like a bifocal - no concentric rings to cause halo effects, etc. But, from what I understand, they are available in very limited corrective power, and I don't know if my prescription is compatible with them or not. But I would be totally happy with the PanOptix if the Clear Vision 3 is a no-go for me. As far as I know, the pricing would be the same.

Lindsey, hopefully your surgeon can match your eye measurements to the closest dioptric power of Clear Vision lenses, based on their experience, if not you still have another option.

The concentric ring design gives smooth transition when the eyes shift viewing distances without the abrupt change crossing a bifocal line. Some halo effect I experience is only at high intensity lighting like street lights at near distance. I don’t see halos while driving at night looking straight and far ahead. Also no halo effect on my vision with lighting at home or public places. So I’m happy with this trade off as I did not like bifocal lenses when I tried on a pair of bifocal glasses years ago, they made me dizzy.

" Elmer, the "one eye for distance and one eye for near vision" thing with contacts is recommended by a lot of ophthalmologists for patients to "try out" before committing to monovision IOLs after cataract surgery. The dominant eye is used for distance and the nondominant eye for near vision. Your brain is supposed to merge the images so that both eyes see properly. "

Yes, but....

I know almost nothing about this. Probably better to call it nothing. My default view is to accept opinions of experts, so I can go along with what you're saying you've heard. But here's a personal experience to the contrary.

In college, my dominant eye became nearsighted while the other remained normal. The images were not "merged" as you describe because (as an example) in a large lecture hall, I couldn't read what the profs would write. I subconsciously developed the habit of squinting by closing my dominant eye and reading at distance with the other. I realized what had happened and had an eye doctor visit (I'd been overdue) and got glasses with a nearsighted correction for one eye and essentially plain glass in the other. I still wear glasses to this day and with different corrections (as I understand is not unusual) in each.

So, maybe. One thing to consider is that if one's distance vision is only seen through one eye, then depth of field is lost.

The squinting approach could work too with different vision implanted in each eye. From my wife's experience, it wouldn't seem that there's a consensus among eye surgeons about using one correction in one eye and a different one in the other.

"In college, my dominant eye became nearsighted while the other remained normal. The images were not "merged" as you describe because (as an example) in a large lecture hall, I couldn't read what the profs would write."

Of course the images weren't merged properly because you didn't have clear vision in both eyes. Once you got your glasses with correction for your right eye, then the images from your right eye merged with the images from your normal, uncorrected, left eye. With contacts or IOLs "set" for monovision, both eyes see correctly for the distance for which they are corrected, then both of those images are merged by your brain.

"I still wear glasses to this day and with different corrections (as I understand is not unusual) in each."

Yes, I think it's probably more common for people to have differing corrections for their two eyes than for the two eyes to need the exact same correction. I used to work with someone who wore contacts with the same prescription for each eye, and he never had to worry about making sure he got each lens in the right chamber of the soaking solution. I've worn "hard" contacts since the early 1970s, and when RGP lenses (rigid gas permeable) lenses came out in 1979 I was switched to those, and have had RGPs ever since. My contacts have always had an almost-imperceptible dot near the edge of the right lens, so you can easily tell which is which.

"One thing to consider is that if one's distance vision is only seen through one eye, then depth of field is lost."

And that's exactly what the problem was that night when I was driving home with monovision contacts. And because I cannot say with absolute certainty that I will never, ever, be in a situation again when vision from only one of my eyes will be enough to serve the need/purpose at hand, I will never, ever, have my vision correction set as monovision.

I had cataract surgery 13 years ago. My surgeon recommended the "mini-mono" lenses, and I agreed to it. I had astigmatism and had been wearing glasses for nearsightedness since first grade. I paid for toric lenses to correct the astigmatism. Incidentally, I assumed all cataract surgeries were done with laser.

The monovision worked well for me, and I've been free of glasses ever since. The only time I put on a pair of drugstore cheaters is if I had to read extremely tiny print on a bottle, or if the light is poor. So on the whole I've been happy.

BUT now I'm 13 years older, and my vision is aging, as vision does. You'd think the surgeon would have taken this into consideration, but apparently not. I recently went to my optometrist and asked for glasses to improve my distance vision for driving. She examined me and gave me a prescription. The result was a pair of glasses (actually two pair, including sunglasses) that I can't use. The correction on the near-vision eye was so strong that it made me a little dizzy, and when I looked in the rearview mirror I saw double. If there was a red truck behind my car, I saw two red trucks--and I couldn't tell which lane it was in. Not good.

Apparently they can't prescribe glasses that correct only the distance-vision eye and leave the other one alone. I went back to the optometrist, and she said there's nothing she can do. I'll find another doctor for another opinion, but I have a feeling I'm up the creek.

I apologize because I know my story isn't helpful to you, Lindsay, but maybe it will save someone else from getting in this situation.

Alisande, I’m sorry you are havng problems with your vision. But I would think your optometrist’s office could simply replace the lens (in the glasses) for the near-vision eye with a clear, noncorrected lens.

And, no, all cataract surgeries are not done with laser. I’m sure that’s because insurance doesn’t cover it and most folks either don’t want, or can’t afford, to pay the out-of-pocket cost for it. I will be paying $1,800 per eye for the laser, in addition to the out-of-pocket cost for the premium IOLs. Insurance only covers the single vision IOLs.

No experience with cataracts, but the discussion about monovision caught my attention. While it may vary by person, it’s my experience that I don’t need perfect vision in both eyes for depth perception, I just need to be able to see with both eyes. I just did some experiments in dim light. With contacts out there was a clear loss in depth perception with either eye covered. Same with my -4.75 contacts in. Between these two sets, I experimented with one lens in. Same thing, the blurry image in one eye was enough to give me depth perception.

I tried monovision briefly, with -4.75 and -3.50. It didn’t work for me, not because my brain couldn’t handle it but because of floaters. One eye has a massive floater near my center of vision most of the time, the other eye has a slightly smaller one near center some of the time. As such, there is no better eye for distance or near.