Post #11: First Test Results 3 Weeks after Surgery - July 16, 2020

Today I went in for my first post-surgery checkup. They tested the visual acuity of my right eye.

I never had my eyes tested when I was young and had good eyesight so I don't know how good my vision was before when it was at its peak but I know I had good eyesight. I suspect it was in the 20/20 (6/6 in metric) to 20/30 (6/9) range but I have no test data to prove it. When I went in to the Mitchell Eye Clinic to have my cataracts checked out and to find out if I was a good candidate for IOL replacement surgery, my visual acuity results were as follows:

Pre-Surgery (Cataract Impaired) Vision

            Left Eye (OS)                                      Right Eye (OD)

SC            20/70                                                     20/40                SC = Without Correction

PH            20/25                                                     20/30                PH = Pinhole Occluder

The Pinhole Occluder temporarily corrects for refractive errors so it can give you an idea of what the eye is capable of seeing without the cataract or whatever is causing the refractive error.

3 Weeks Post-IOL Replacement Surgery

Today, the technician who was doing the checkup was quite surprised at how close I am able to focus in the near range. I can focus quite well at about 15 cm (6 inches). She said that typically, most people can't focus closer than 40 - 60 cm (16 - 24 inches) with the IOL that I had put in.

She said my right eye was seeing at 20/20 and should still continue to improve as I continue to neural-adapt to the IOL. Prognosis: EXCELLENT!

This is terrific news! I couldn't be happier. I don't always see everything in perfect focus so I know I still have a ways to go in neural-adapting to this IOL but these results are very, very encouraging. It seems I made an excellent choice with the Lentis MPlus lens.

Post #10: Noticeable Progress! 2.5 Weeks After Surgery - July 11, 2020

My vision in the far and mid-range maybe improved a little during the week up to Friday but if those things did improve, it wasn't by much. Things changed though Friday evening. It seemed that rather suddenly I was seeing things much more focused and sharp in all ranges most of the time. That has carried on to today and I have to say my vision is much better in those ranges than it was say two days ago. 

This is not to say that I'm always seeing things in perfect focus because there are times when I shift my gaze to something off at some distance and it isn't perfectly in focus but it seems like most of the time I look over at something, it is focused and when I then look over at something else much closer or further away, it's in focus and sharp too. This means that my brain is neural adapting to this lens and is learning what part of the signal hitting the retina it needs to look at and which parts of the signal it needs to filter out/ignore whenever I look at something at whatever distance.

When I do get something in focus, I have to say the image is quite sharp and there is excellent detail. This is especially true in the near range. I can see very fine detail when I look at things close up and the detail I see is so sharp and crisp it's literally like looking at a Hi-res image on a very sharp 4K or 8K TV. Being that I'm nearly 59, it's been a long, long time since I was in my teens and twenties when my vision was probably at its best, so I can't really remember what it was like to look through my eyes back then but I don't ever remember being able to see so much fine detail in various things like skin, leaves, flowers, wood grain, etc., like I can now. It's really amazing! I can only imagine how well I'll be able to see when I get the left eye done and I get fully neural-adapted to both lenses. If I keep progressing the way I am, I should have spectacular vision.

One thing that this experience is teaching me is what a wondrous things our brains are. My brain's ability to adapt so quickly to such a radical change in optics within my eye is nothing short of amazing. I know I still have a ways to go but I'm very surprised and pleased with how far I've come in such a short period of time.

One other note: I was in my regular Doctor's office on Thursday. At the end of the hallway where the examination rooms are there is an eye chart. Unfortunately, they didn't have a mark on the floor to tell you where 20 feet (6 m) away from the eye chart was so I just took a guess. I have no way of knowing exactly how far I was away from the chart but I'm pretty sure I was close to being 20 feet away. I started reading the chart and figured out which was the smallest line of text on the chart that I could make out with my right eye. When I walked up to the chart I saw it was the 20/15 line and the line above it that I could easily make out was the 20/20 line! I know that's not a very scientific test because I may not have been all of 20 feet away from the chart but I'm very sure I was over 15 feet away and being able to read the 20/15 line from 15 feet away would technically be 20/20 vision so if I was over 15 feet away and able to read that line, that could mean I may end up with something approaching or even slightly better than 20/20. That would be a spectacular result! I'm going in for my follow-up appointment at my eye doctor's clinic in 4 or 5 days I think so I'll likely get a proper test then and will report back the results.

The bottom line here is that my vision and ability to use this new lens in my eye are definitely improving and indications are that a very satisfying result seems likely and that a terrific result seems possible. Let's hope. 

Post #9: A Breakthrough! 1.6 Weeks After Surgery - July 6, 2020

When I woke up this morning, the first thing I did was look at some things on my 10.5" screen tablet computer. As it has been for the last couple weeks, I noticed how clear my near-field vision (15 cm - 60 cm or 6 inches - 2 feet) is and I also noticed that there were certain ranges within that range that were either more sharp or less sharp than others. But when I put the tablet down and looked down at my toes and beyond, I noticed something else. Things were more in focus than they had been before and not just a little bit more in focus. A fair amount, actually. Excited, I started to look around the room at things that were at various distances from me and much of it seemed a lot more clear than it was even just a day ago. I couldn't believe it!

I got out of bed and went over into the living room and looked out the front window towards my car parked on the street maybe 10-ish m (30 - 33 feet) away and I could see it fairly clearly. It was still not as sharp as I want it to be but it was definitely noticeably sharper than it was before. Looking around at things, I realized my mid and distance vision seems to have improved tremendously overnight. I was stunned and filled with a mix of joy and relief. My brain is neural-adapting to the lens and I'm starting to see much better! The change from yesterday is unbelievable! I was so happy!

I had to drive somewhere this morning and when I would look up ahead, I could see cars a lot more clearly than I was seeing them yesterday. Not as clear and as sharp as I hope I will someday see them but a lot better than before. When I looked over at the right (passenger) side side-view mirror, I could see it and the image reflected in it VERY clearly. It was quite sharp. It made me so happy to see that I squealed with joy!  :-)

One thing I notice is that when I look at something at a distance and am thinking consciously about whether or not it looks sharp and focused, it often looks out of focus. But if my mind is thinking about something other than my vision and I'm looking over at the same thing, I often suddenly become aware of the fact that my focus on that object is pretty good. It's as though my conscious brain wants to cut through and make me aware that the subconscious part of my mind is starting to do a kick-ass job of neural-adapting to the new lens. It also seems like if my conscious mind can at times get in the way, so my sub-conscious mind has a harder time doing its job of focusing only on what it needs to on my retina and filtering out/ignoring the rest. It's kind of like the battle you have inside your head when you're trying to play golf. The subconscious mind and the muscle memory knows how to swing the club but everything goes haywire if your conscious mind gets in there and tries to take over the process.

At any rate, it's been a very important day in this journey and this giant leap I've made so suddenly has really made me feel much more confident and optimistic about where this is going to go. I have to admit, I was starting to let some doubts about how successful I was going to be with these lenses start to creep in. Now I'm really looking forward to getting the left eye done and to that day when I can see everything super sharp through both eyes at the same time. I think it's gonna happen! I'm also catching myself taking great delight in finding things with small type on them and holding them out at an arms length just to see if I can read the text (which I usually can).   ;-)

 

Post #8 - 1.5 Weeks After Surgery - July 5, 2020

I'm surprised, but I haven't noticed much improvement in anything since my last blog. My near field vision is still pretty good but the range I can focus in hasn't changed much from my last blog. I get good focus in the 0.15 - 60 cm range but beyond that, things are not good and haven't changed much. The mid and distant range vision coming from my cataract inflicted left eye is still quite a bit better than what's coming through my "repaired" eye, especially in low light. When I go outside in the backyard and look at the trees silhouetted against a moonlit night sky, what I see out of my non-operated on cataract inflicted left eye is far more crisp and focused than my "repaired" right eye which is quite dark and blurry and lacking in detail. 

When I was out driving during the day, I was finding it just as tough to see signs and see things up ahead of me clearly as it was before the operation. I found myself beginning to wonder if I somehow got the wrong lens put in or if my lens had moved and was off axis or something.

This neural adaptation process is taking longer/moving along slower than I expected. I would've hoped that I'd be making more improvements in the mid and distant ranges by now but maybe I'm being unrealistic. I don't know. The Doctor's office didn't really give me any information on what to expect in terms of normal timelines for neural adapting to these lenses and there's not that much information about it that I can find on the Internet. This is why I think records and accounts of people going through the process like this are valuable. There needs to be more of them.

Post #7: One Week After Surgery - July 1, 2020

Not a lot has changed since my last blog. My near field focus is still pretty good from about 15 cm - 60 cm (6 inches to 2 feet) but after that it starts getting blurry. There has not been much improvement in my mid-range and distance vision. The vision I get at those distances is definitely worse than what I see through my unaltered cataract afflicted (left) eye.

The amount of haloing and starbursting I see around traffic and street lights at night has diminished a bit more but it's still there and fairly noticeable. It's looking like it will be tolerable though. I'm hoping it continues to diminish as I neural-adapt to the implant.

I noticed this before but forgot to mention it. When I type on the computer screen, I see the type quite clearly but I also see faint ghost type right underneath the text that I see on the screen. The real text appears to overlap the top part of the ghost type so the vertical offset between the real and ghost type is maybe 90% of the letter height. What I mean here is that if the offset was 100%, the top of the ghost type would just touch the bottom of the real type. At 90%, the real type appears to overly the top 10% of the ghost type. Here's an example graphic I made to show you what I'm seeing.

Post #6: Second Day after Surgery - June 26, 2020

By last evening the scratchy feeling in my eye was gone and it was still gone today. My vision continues to improve, although most of the improvement is in the short range out to about 80 cm or so. Further out than that, vision through the IOL is still not that sharp. My brain is obviously still trying to figure out what visual input from the IOL to use and which to filter out when I'm looking at things at those distances.

One thing that's interesting is how good my close-up vision is getting. The literature on the IOL I chose says the IOL is good into the short range down to the 30 or 40 cm (12 - 16 inch) range. Closer than that they say will usually require reading glasses but I'm seeing things clearly as close as 15 cm (6 inches)! I haven't been able to see things clearly that close in since presbyopia started to kick in in my early to mid 40s (~20 years ago). This is very encouraging! I hope my ability to see things so clearly so close-up continues and that my mid and far range vision kicks gets to be as good.

After dark, I went back down to the intersection a couple blocks away to look at the traffic/stop, street and car lights to see if things were still the same as they were last night. To my absolute astonishment, things were completely different! There was NOWHERE NEAR as much haloing and starbursting around the lights and the patterns I was seeing were completely different! In just 24 hours, the amount of difference I saw was mind blowing. I was in disbelief at what I was seeing. There was a little bit of haloing around the various lights and I was seeing a small cluster of multiple images of the lights around each light but there was very little starbursting anymore. Just 24 hours earlier, there was an alarming amount of starbursting emanating from every light source. Now there's maybe only 10% of that. I was gobsmacked! 

This is VERY encouraging. A day ago, I was very concerned about what driving at night was going to be like and now, just a day later, I'm not that worried at all. If this trend continues, I won't be having any trouble with haloing and starbursting around bright lights at night and night driving shouldn't be a problem.

I'm very interested to see what things are looking like when I return to the intersection tonight.

Post #5: First Day Post Surgery - June 25, 2020

Morning

When I woke up my eye was still quite sore. It felt like it had been scratched in a couple places or like I had a piece or two of grit lodged under my eyelid. My vision out of the fixed eye was a little better but not much. Everything was still in soft focus but there was a bit more detail, Things looked better than before the procedure with both eyes open. I notice that my device (computer, phone and tablet) screens  all seem too bright and hurt my eyes. I don't know if this is because my right eye is still a bit dilated from the drops they put in before the procedure or if it's because I've now got a clearer lens in my right eye and now the screens are too bright for that eye. I turned the brightness down on all of them so I could look at them more comfortably.

When I first sat down at the computer, I could barely make out any text. I then went through testing all of the reading glasses I had used for various things before but none were any good for the computer. None of them were great for the computer before but they did help a bit. What I did use for working on my computer was an old pair of bifocals my late father used to wear. They weren't perfect by any means but they did improve my vision a noticeable amount at an intermediate distance so they were the best things I had for working on the computer. They don't work worth a damn now so I know something's changed with my vision, that's for sure.

Afternoon

My vision is getting better out of my fixed eye but it's still nowhere near crystal clear. It's more clear than it was in the morning and considerably more clear than last night when everything appeared to be in very soft focus and little detail could be seen. I now see more detail in things but everything is still quite blurry. I have found now that raising the magnification level on my computer screen is helping more than any of my readers/magnifiers that I used before. Dad's old bifocals don't work any better either so I probably won't ever be using them again.

One thing I do notice that's encouraging is that if I look at the computer screen with just my left eye, I still see double like I did before but if I just look through my right eye, the text is still not sharp but there is no double vision like there was before. That tells me that if my right eye can neural-adapt to this lens and start to see things in good focus, I should no longer have the double/multiple image thing happening that I did with the cataract and my vision problem will be licked.

Evening

I went out for a walk after dark. There are some stop lights a couple blocks away so I went down there to take a look. Huge halos and starbursts off of the traffic and street lights. But they don't go symmetrically around the lights. It's kind of a clam shell pattern with the longest part of the shell pointing vertically upward. There was also a distinct diffraction pattern in the starbursts. Very strange. There was far less haloing in my cataract afflicted left eye that what I was seeing through the IOL in my right eye. It's going to take me a while to figure out how to duplicate what I was seeing through my IOL in Photoshop but I will do my best to do that and add them to this post later. I certainly hope those effects diminish considerably with neural-adaptation otherwise driving at night will be a real challenge.