No1erma.
Ok lens replacement surgery:
Bear in mind that I'm just a patient who has had surgery that has had a few things go awry. Means that my view in things is rather coloured but its a real life experience..
Feel free to correct me any lurking ophthalmologist people!
You are right that it is exactly the same op has cataract surgery. The surgeon removes your old lens inside your lens capsule and replaces it with an artificial lens.
There are 3 general kinds of replacement lenses. The standard, fixed focus lens. This is by far and away the most common sort. Most people choose to have perfect vision at distance and therefore may need glasses for intermediate and will need glasses for close up.
Then there are multifocal implants. The sort I have. Very very few people have them on the nhs but given my young age (mid 30's) and a surgeon who fought to do this I've been given them. They have fixed focuses at distant and near. The way the lens works also gives you intermediate. In my case the intermediate has not been very successful making it hard say looking at documents that other are looking at, or when shopping. Computer i've adapted too.
A couple of problems with these lenses. Because everything you look at is split between near and far (creating double images) your brain has to work out what its looking at. Mostly this is fine but it can give huge huge halos and glare problems. Night driving can be compromised. Also when I look at lit street signs I get a double image. I also find that one of my eyes gives me problems when looking at things on a bright background. The sky 'leaks' on to roof lines for instance. With these lenses I've also found I've lost some contrast vision. In dim light I can't see the details I used to.
The other kind of lens is the crystalens. It is supposed to accommodate using the muscles that held your lens to move back and forth. I don't know much about these at all except I've read of them not always being as successful as hoped.
So thats the surgery.
If you are having surgery because you are very short sighted then it makes you more prone to posterior vitreous detachment. The vitreous can start to break down at the back of the eye, coming away from the retina. As well as very occasionally causing retinal problems it can leave you with huge floaters that can make your vision feel 'dirty' that happened to me. It does happen to most people by the time they are elderly but surgery can bring it on. With me it was only a month or so. It was scary as I was getting a lot of flashing lights and had to be seen as an emergency.
Next. If you are having the surgery young, it makes you more prone to posterior capsular opacification. The back of the capsule holding the lens in can become cloudy, much like a cataract. This requires further surgery - laser - to cut away the back of the capsule. This also happened to me. Its generally minor surgery but the multifocal made it much harder.
And i have been very very unfortunate that now one of my lenses is itself developing a problem. Have posted about this before. Replacing that lens is major eye surgery and a risk I don't want to take.
So in literally a year. (this week is anniversary of second eye having cataract op) I've gone from a person with normal shortsighted eyes (but with cataracts that were impacting on my vision) to having 'dirty' vision, blurry in one eye, struggling to read in anything but bright light unable to drive at night or in dull conditions. I've had to give up my sewing until I can work out how to adapt round it. I needed the surgery.
I wouldnt recommend doing this just to get rid of glasses if glasses are giving you good vision. I honestly don't believe its worth compromising good correctable vision.