Anyone had lens exchange surgery with "blended vision" ?

[Greysowhat]

I'm very close to making the decision to have my eyes to improve my vision which is terrible and also as I have the beginnings of cataracts.

The surgeon has recommended the extended depth of focus option but that involves having different vision in each eye, the idea being that the brain will adjust and I won't even notice that one eye is better for distance and the other eye is better for intermediate vision. But I'm just a bit worried that I will notice and won't be comfortable with it.

So please share your experiences of this, how did you get on with this blended vision? . Also I'm autistic so that makes me worry more that my brain won't get used to it.

I haven’t had eye surgery, but I wear contact lenses where one lens is better for reading and one better for distance! My brain absolutely does sort it all out, though very occasionally I notice a slight wavy unfocused line in the middle (getting less frequent as I get used to the new prescriptions).

Before you have the surgery, could you try the concept out with contact lenses?

I have a contact lens for close vision/reading in one eye and had laser surgery for long distance in the other. I love it. Got used to it in no time and don’t notice unless I am thinking about it. I am super happy with my vision which is better than 20:20.
good luck whatever you decide.

Yes I might ask about a trial run. Although I think the difference between the lenses isn't a lot, I'll have distance and intermediate vision.

I had botched laser surgery 6 years which after a few years left me with terrible vision in one eye and the other eye was very good for a few years but it's not great now so I already have very different levels of vision in each eye.

Oh that sounds good that you get so used to it. I asked the surgeon about it and he said you have to let your brain adjust to it but no covering one eye to see what the other one sees and vice versa.

Can't you get multi focal lenses. I had this done last October. I needed reading glasses and then my distance started to go. I no longer need glasses at all. Definitely worth considering if you're suitable.

I had this done when I had steroid induced cataracts in both eyes The surgeon suggested it and I couldn’t be happier. There was a spot where I had a tiny bit of blurred vision when on a laptop but that went fairly quickly.

I do this, it was called monocular vision to me.
One eye for close and one eye for distance.
I am saving up for the lens replacement surgery.

Unfortunately I can't due to having had laser before, Too high a risk of night time glare and halos and also unexpected outcomes with my vision.

Actually didn’t make clear - the close vision lens is intraocular - inside my eye - like a cataract surgery. Was painfree and only took paracetamol till bedtime that day.

Totally used to it. I do use glasses only for computer screen work (‘mid distance’) which I like as i use the blue light protection ones

Can I ask how much it costs please ?
I had laser surgery about 25 yrs ago, eyesight now I have to wear glasses to read and if driving at night glasses to
I hate wearing glasses

It's around £4000 per eye but I'm going to an eye clinic rather than one f the chains. I think they are a bit cheaper, not much though. I hate wearing glasses too. I had laser 6 years ago but only got around 3 years out of it. My vision seems to get worse by the day now.

Not if the OP wasn't happy with the vision post laser...

OP - I would absolutely try it with contact lenses first, some people will not adapt.

How old are you and what is your current prescription?

if you have the lens exchange and you're less than 65 you will have less near vision than you have at the moment.

Try with contact lenses. I wear contacts and tried this and couldn't adjust to it and had to switch to more expensive varifocal lenses. On closer examination the optician realised I have mixed eye dominance, so no amount of time would make me get used to having 2 different lenses.

I did this with contact lenses for about 10 years and adapted no problem. But as I got older and the difference between near and distance vision changed a bit it no longer worked. But that shouldn't happen with lens replacement so I'd also suggest doing a trial with contact lenses.

DH had cataracts removed and what he called trifocal lenses put in. Is that what the OP means

My laser treatment was a disaster in that the surgeon adjusted the left eye to be short-sighted, the right eye to be long sighted. She was supposed to make them both for long-sight. I still don't know why she did this. I should have sued but at the time I just wanted my eyes fixed. So she did a second lasering on the short sighted eye to make it like the other but for whatever reason it has reverted to the way it was before any lasering so everything in that eye is a blur. I should have gone for the lens exchange then but it was too expensive at the time.

The difference in vision in the eyes then after the laser surgery was about 3 or 4, dioptres I think which I hated. The lens exchange will give a difference of about 1 so I am very hopeful I will get used to it.

My current reading prescription is about +3.5 in left eye and +2 i the right eye. Not sure about distance prescription as I've been getting by with the right eye being ok for that. But recently that eye is deteriorating.

I was 50 when I had the laser.

When I had cataract surgery they gave me something like this, one eye was slightly short sighted, one eye slightly long sighted. I recall winking to see close up things! Over time my eyes deteriorated again and I now wear glasses FT, but -2ish rather than the -7 pre cataracts

Well -2 is still an improvement on -7. How long ago was your surgery? And did they give you a reason for the deterioration?

That's odd.

My mum had mono-vision contact lenses (one for distance, one for reading) for around 20 years.
When she had her cataracts done the surgeon asked if she wanted this for the replacement lenses, and said they only consider it where the patient has had mono-visiom contact lenses so they know their brain will accept it.

I also had mono-vision contact lenses, after trying multi-focal which I couldn't get along with. My optician said less people can cope with the mono-vision.

Edit: typos only

My surgery is 20 yrs ago now. -2 is much better than -7, I can find my glasses and see in the pool! I was probably glasses free for about 5 years. I wasn’t given a reason for the deterioration - “just one of those things”. My long distance is pretty good so I can see my phone/small print fine.

When I was using my mono-vision contact lenses (don't use anymore due to other issues) I did find that my night time vision wasn't quite good enough for driving
I got a pair of glasses which were no-prescriotion in my distance lenses eye and took my other eye (which was reduced distance rather than actually reading) back up to my full distance prescription.
They also had yellow tinted lenses.
I kept them in the car and they made a real difference at night.

What they propose for me is not exactly monovision, it's more what they call blended vision. The discrepancy between the vision in each eye will be a lot less than traditional monovision hence no suggestion of a trial with contact lenses.

My distance prescription is around -2.
I didn’t need reading glasses when I didn't have my contact lenses in, ie my uncorrected reading vision was fine, but my vision had deteriorated (age) so that I couldn't read well enough when I did have my contact lenses in.

My mono-vision lenses are -2.0 & -0.5.
I then actually stopped using the -0.5 as it made little difference - it really only helped with very far vision, and the night time driving glasses resolved this.