Just a recap of my recent experience for those of you considering YAG.
At my optometrist visit in January, I was told I had grade 2 PCO in my distance (L) eye, and the doc recommended a visit to the cataract surgeon. My near eye had only a tiny bit of PCO. I had started noticing that the 2 eyes saw color a little differently, vision in my left eye seemed dimmer, and nothing was perfectly focused in my left eye, especially for nearer vision. I also noticed a shrinking field of view in the left (PCO) eye, especially in bright light when I got a brownish-red ring around the outer edges of the field of vision. Saw the cataract doc in June–he said grade 1 1/2 in left eye, trace in the right, and said YAG for the left eye would probably help my vision a little bit. In our conversation, he said there was less of an issue with floaters if you get it done earlier, which was a big issue for me. It was a tough decision given the prognosis was it would help “a little”, but went for it 5 days ago.
The first day I wondered if I’d made a mistake. I was pretty dilated, but instead of the rings with spokes around lights that I was used to when dilated I saw big foggy bright blobs with giant sunbeams/starbursts around every light. 5 days out I’m really happy with the results. I don’t have any floaters, my eyes see the same colors now, and contrast and brightness have REALLY improved, as has my overall acuity. The “fog” around light sources has gone away. When I look directly at a bright light, I still often get a starburst, but indirect lights (like recessed cans) don’t have them anymore. It’s gone from hazy, wide sunbeam-like rays to more distinct streaks of light and seems like shorter rays than it was at first. I don’t always see the starbursts, and when I look at the light for a few seconds, they’ll start to slowly rotate like a fan for about 270 degrees and then blink out. At less than a week out, it’s still improving and I hope it will disappear. It might be an issue if I drove in traffic at night, but that’s something I try and avoid. Even if the starbursts don’t completely go away, I’m really glad I went forward with this. Everything is brighter, sharper, and with better contrast, and it feels like I’ve got full peripheral vision again. For my lifestyle, that’s more important than the starbursts–although I’m still hoping they’ll go away with time.