Just spoke to a friend who is about a month past cataract surgery. Her situation is unique. She only had a cataract in one eye, due to an eye injury years ago. She hadn’t even noticed the sight deterioration in the one eye as the other eye had picked up the slack and her overall sight had not really changed. They did the lens where she will not need correction for distance, but because it is only one eye, she may still need distance glasses for the other eye. I think it will also take time for the unaffected eye to give back control to the newly repaired eye.
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My husband’s cataract surgery is next Thursday, June 4. He went in for final testing last week. After they had finished, the nurse said, “Oh, are you wearing contacts? You were supposed to leave them out for a week. We’ll have to redo the tests in one week.” Ugh. He went back yesterday so he should be set now.
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My head was immobilized, and then my eye was also.
Believe me, you will sort of hear the folks talking but once this is done, you won’t remember a thing they said!
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I was in a slight twilight state for mine. Still had recovery time there and had to have someone else drive. It wasn’t bad. Strange but not bad. They also immobilized head.
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The same thing happened to me. No one told me I needed to take my contacts out before the final testing. I had to go back for another appointment (which always seems to take at least 90 minutes with my doctor). In my case, I couldn’t wear my contacts for 2 weeks. My vision is terrible with my glasses. The prescription is so old. I will upgrade it after the surgery, if needed.
FYI, my doctor told me not to wear contacts for 3 days prior to the procedure. My date is June 15. Good luck to your husband.
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OK, why didn’t y’all tell me how fun it would be comparing my “good” eye and my bad eye? When I cover my right eye, everything looks so pretty and bright white. When i cover my left eye, everything looks like yellowed like the Declaration of Independence!
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@Youdon_tsay somewhere on this forum, I definitely mentioned the vivid color clarity in my new lens eye, vs my old one.
We were choosing paint for our whole downstairs, and upstairs hall (it’s all connected). I wanted a very pale butter yellow…close to off white, but yellow. My husband was NOT on board with that at all. We went and got small samples of about 6 different paint colors and put strokes of paint all over the rooms. Then DH, DD and I voted…and son of a gun…the pale yellow won! So that’s what the rooms were painted.
BUT…then I had my first cataract done. I got home…opened one eye…then the other….back and forth a few times. With my new lens, there wasn’t a speck of yellow in my walls!
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I remember someone talking about paint colors. Amazing.
I just like looking at things and seeing how different they look depending on which eye I cover. I feel totally justified in recognizing how quickly my sight had changed. No wonder I wasn’t comfortable driving at night. When I get the second one done, my mind may explode.
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Reporting back after 3 months post surgery.My eye pressure went from 21 to 13 in both eyes, which is great. Both eyes got premium astigmatism and distant vision lenses after being near sided my whole life.
It took me no time to get used to using OTC cheaters. I don’t need glasses to drive with the Tesla or to do some computer work. I even ordered from Zenni progressive for reading 2.0 with transitions for sunglasses and that worked very well on our recent road trip.
Yes, the blues and pinks are much more vivid!
Thanks @eyemgh
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My husband’s cataract surgery went really well. He has 20/20 vision in both eyes now! He can’t believe it. I’ll be on Medicare a year from tomorrow, so I will try to get the surgery ASAP after that date.
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So did he wake up reaching for his glasses? 
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Yes! I’m so envious!
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I had my first eye done today and even though the vision is still blurry I’m amazed at the difference in colors when I cover one eye then the other! It’s like the whole world got scrubbed clean. For me whites are the biggest difference - my mind was seeing white, but now if I just look through my left eye it’s kind of yellowish whereas with my right it’s bright white. I didn’t expect such dramatic color differences as I perceive gradations in color pretty well and I’m relatively young with cataracts that only got bad in the past couple years so bonus I didn’t expect! We will see how I feel about the dirty floors and wrinkles once my vision improves 
(I just did mono-focal so my near vision is still fine and I’ll still need glasses for distance vision - I didn’t want to need glasses for reading).
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Since this got bumped, I’ll update that apparently I am part of the 30% who develops a membrane and will have to have it zapped off. Still waiting for my new distance glasses.
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My H had his membranes zapped off too—it was very quick & easy & done with pretty much no waiting in ophthamologist office (not surgery center).
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I should also add for those coming after me that I declined the sedation due to some previous drug reactions and it was fine. It only takes 10-15 minutes and you’re looking at a bright light and they’re flushing the eye so you can’t see anything coming at you (they did numb the eye pretty well with local so I felt almost nothing). My comment was is it wasn’t as bad as the dentist (I hate the dentist). Now I’m not so crazy about the recovery so far, but the procedure itself was fine without the Versed that was on offer.
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could read closed caption and clearly see dust bunnies on the floor after the procedure
I’m not there yet, the eye cleared some overnight but I’m still a bit blurry - but the glimpses are tantalizing. But sunlight is harsher than I expected - the pretty green golden glow through the trees in my front yard is a much harsher white than it used to be 
. But overall the bright colors are very nice! Seems like my right eye has become dominant again overnight though as the colors I see with both eyes are already closer to what I see alone with that eye.
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Your eyes will get used to the sunlight again. I thought I got rid of glasses only to wear sunglasses forever but you’ll adapt.
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Appreciate the detail. Everone says it’s no big deal, but no one up till now has explained WHY it is no big deal. So thank you!
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