Cataract Surgery and Impact on Astronomy

[glend (Glen)]

So I know that there a fair number of us that have faced, or will face, decisions about cataract surgery. There are a range of issues that surgeons rarely bring up when encouraging patients to have a sense replacement, mostly because these things never occur to them or affect a small percentage of the population.
Lens Tyoes: Just like glasses, cataract lenses replacements come in different focal length configurations. Many of vision challenged folks use mulitfocal lenses which allow you to have only one pair of glasses for various tasks, and there are multifocal cataract lenses as well. For many who choose a multifocal lense replacement you are going to run into distortion and artifacts in your vision when trying to do visual astronomy, and you cannot simply take them off as they are inside your eye.

I encourage up you to take a few minutes to watch this Utube video on the 5 regrets patients have with cataract lenses.

https://youtu.be/p6sozPfD6TU?si=I1OEaEEO7FFgnVLd

My own experience, despite my Dr suggesting cataract replacement lenses, was to stick with my multifocal glasses, on the basis that I can remove them for visual astronomy, and still enjoy good vision whole driving (ie being able to see the dashboard).
Of course if you are suffering with vision clouding, or colour distortion, single focal lense replacement would make sense, and you can always get a pair of reading glasses, but driving will be seriously impacted.

If you have had cataract surgery, please let us know how your handling the transition as it relates to astronomy.

[TrevorW]

I know of people who have had cataract surgery, some no longer needing to where glasses at all, while others now use reading glasses only. I for one are due to see an Ophthalmologist in February to discuss the issue. As I am still fairly active, walking, fishing, road cycling, I will probably opt to have my lens replaced for distance as I have always been short sighted,opting to wear reading glasses after that if required. Visual astronomy no longer interests me so that is not a issue.

[AG Hybrid (Adrian)]

I had cataract surgery for my right eye about 7 years ago. Going blind in my right eye in my early 30's was incredibly unlucky. However, for visual astronomy the view in the eyepiece is better then ever for clarity and especially colour rendition of stars and the planets and even bright nebula. The lens did induce some minor astigmatism but I can observe with or without my glasses. The lens only focuses to 50-60cm meters and I need glasses for driving obviously. The specialist suggested this as its about the distance of your monitor at your work desk tends to be and is a useful focal distance. Of course at the time my left eye was perfectly fine and filled in the other gaps.

But now, at 39 my left eye is starting to cloud a little bit. My right eye came on very quickly where the left one is slower. I think this time I'll use a multifocal lens if my left eye gets much worst. That being said, I had been a left eye observer until I was 38 years old when I started to detect light scatter on bright objects. I switched to my right eye for visual and realised there's something wrong with my left eye.

I wish I switched over to my right eye for visual observing several years ago since it has a lens that will never cloud or dull and from what I've read -has the clarity of the eye of a child.

[By.Jove (Jove)]

My sister had cataracts, and had both eyes done a few months apart. As she had normal vision in both eyes surgeon configured one lens for reading and the other for driving so she basically doesn't need glasses except for really close tasks like threading a needle or removing splinter.

She confirmed she has a lot more contrast and colors are a lot brighter than before, especially when she had a look through my scope she finally saw Jupiter properly for the first time.

So... one success story.

[MattT]

I had cataract surgery done on both eyes 4 years ago at 57.
1.Didn’t have cataracts but needed peripheral vision which glasses didn’t give.
2.Contact lenses were a pain to put in…never really got good at it.
Talked with the doc about everything in the vid and went for mono distance left, my dominant eye, and near for right….just like contact lenses I used.
Afterwards….perfect vision, except for floaters.
Had the floater removal surgery this year and now great vision!

For visual astro it to a couple of months for eyes to settle down.

There is an 11mm focusing difference between eyes according to the scale on the focus tube. Might try binoviewing one day again, not sure if that will work though.

[Renato1 (Renato)]

Thanks for the interesting video Glen.
I asked here nearly a year ago about what lenses to get for my cataract surgery, and got lots of positive responses. Circumstances intervened, and I'm now getting an eye done next month.

Basically, when everything goes blurry in one eye as mine has, one really doesn't have much choice.
Regards,
Renato

[Satchmo]

Thanks for the video link. I'd advise anyone needing cataract surgery to not get talked in to having a different focal point ie one for reading and one for long distance . In my view that just gives you a compromise in all that you do with your eyes oweing to the improvements you get with proper binocular vision both for close up and distance . Just continue with reading glasses if you were allready doing that.


I'm about 1.5 years and 1.1 years into my IOL surgeries . The thing to remember is that its a bit of a lucky dip down the track how things turn out . Butif your vision was really suffering before you will still be way better off.


Before I was about -6 dioptres short sighted in both eyes plus wearing readers with typically a + 1.5 add. Astronomy was seriously compromised with my right eye cataract progressing very fast . My right eye became so short sighted no optical correction would help . There was also a yellow brown haze, so that my righteye became useless for astronomy and pretty bad in the day .


Cutting to the end of the story , I had Zeiss aspheric clear implants ( not the usual yellow tint they try to sell you on. My daytime vision is now brilliant - I can easily read the very smallest letter on the bottom line of the chart .


Still have some night myopia and some different astigmatism when pupils expanded . I have some astronomy glasses , which have about - 0.5 dioptre extra sherical correction and an 0.5 dioptre astigmatism in both eyes , which is not a problem in the day . So night vision with these glasses is amazing .


I can split naked eye doubles I can remember splitting when I was 11 or 12 . The astigmatism in my left eye ( where I had none before the implants ) seems to persist in the telescope at all magnifications with glasses off , while I don't see it at all in my right eye ( which was originally the bad eye ). I am converting my eyepieces over to Baader Morpheus 76 degree which I can use a Badder Dioptrix corrector on if I choose - or I just use my right eye mostly anyway .


My day vision is so sharp I can read my phone fine , only need readers for computer and tablet / books .



Alll in all its been a good experience . Colours are vibrant - I can see the blue end of the spectrum now and whites look a very pure white , and the pool looks blue again rather than green . Getting up in the morning and not searching for glasses is great !


Hope this helps .

[blindman]

only few of surgeons in Sydney know what they are doing, and that is a problem. My friend is a optometrist, so he knows.

[big-blue]

Thankyou Glen for the video link.
Great video which addresses most of the questions I had.
Various friends have had cataract surgery : but they are not visual astronomers and could never describe to me the nature of pros and cons they were seeing, and I suspect never needed to consider critical focus or contrast. though most could describe how colours seemed to be much more vivid immediately after a cloudy lens was replaced.

Similarly, I have always stuck with glasses even though (non astro) friends might wax lyrical about how good their laser eye surgery was. Their experience was good but they did mention more flaring at night (iris wide open, with more light passing through lasered scar tissue I guess) : and that worried me enough to stick with glasses. It seems that the laser treatment now also has long term consequences in some cases, as my optometrist reports a significant number of lasered eyes developing issues 20-30 years down the track.
Anyway, I will need cataract surgery sometime in near future and this video has clarified my own preferences, and will enable me to ask the right questions when the time comes.
I will be recommending the video to my friends who face the same problem.
Thanks for posting

[ALman (AL)]

The good news is it can be repaired, probably removing the entire lens and replacing it with an artificial one. Being able to look through telescopes again would be worth it.

[Rod-AR127 (Rod)]

Interesting. Haven't read the article yet but definately will.
I just had a left retina reattaching.
A Vitrectomy l believe its called.
About 5 or six weeks ago, gas in my eye has dissipated but there is still some fluid under the retina which causes straight lines to appear not straight.
This fluid should dissipate over the next few weeks.
Further to this, for the first time in well over 12 months l got my little skywatcher 72ED out and had a quick glimpse of Jupiter, Mars, Orion, Car and so forth.
Looking through my right eye, predominant eye, all good and normal.
Looking through my left eye, magnification halved. Everything looked way further away.
I'll ask my surgeon on 4th Mayand see what he says
He's only 32 yr old so may have limited experience with this.
Good viewing from Perth last night, temps have dropped off after sunset to tracks racks and puffer jacket temps.

[gnair (Girish)]

I had a cornea replacement to fix keratoconus. Now after 2 years of healing my surgeon is recommending a cataract surgery to fix the same eye which reads at -6. I am not sure what kind of lens he wants me to have but this post definitely provides some context. Thanks for sharing.

[TrevorW]

Had my right eye done on Thursday, apart from the long wait got in to the hospital at 10 and surgery not done until 4 the procedure was relatively quick and painless, with the surgeon assuring me everything went well at the end- what else could she say ???- now to put up with a very red eye for a week or two, my long distance eyesight could be 20/20. Even in the short time span since the op, I have noticed colours seem more vivid. Long term I will still need glasses for reading but that is OK with me I've been wearing them since I was * so no big deal