I am a 69 year old photographer and artist who plans to never retire. I saw a retina specialist for the second time recently. He said that the foveal depressions in both of my epiretinal membranes (one eye worse than the other) have been stable for two years. He suggested that I get my cataract surgery first before possibly dealing with my retina issue. My opthalmyologist, who has done thousands of cataract surgeries, said that implanting the Acrysol toric (for my astigmation) PanOptix lenses would would worsen my retina condition. He suggested that via Femto laser surgery, he would implant the Acrysol toric Monofocal lens for distance in one eye and for close-medium vision in the other eye. Is he correct in his estimation? Does anyone have experience or knowledge about this? Is his plan my only option? I was hoping to possibly be eyeglasses-free for the first time since I was eight years old. Is this a pipedream?
I am on the wait list for cataract surgery and can’t speak from experience with epiretinal membrane issues. There are some others here that do have experience and I hope they can help.
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One issue you should think about is blue light filtering. The new Alcon Acrysof lenses (as well as the Alcon PanOptix) are tinted yellow and filter blue light. As a photographer that might alarm you. However if you investigate, you will find that their blue light filtering matches what those with a normal lens sees. Some other lenses (like Tecnis) do not filter blue light, and give you a brighter image, but it does not match a normal natural lens. So if you want to see what your customers with natural lenses see, I would suggest getting a lens with blue light filtering.
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Getting a toric lens if you need it, I think is a good idea. You should be able to get both a PanOpix and monofocal AcroSof lens in a toric version.
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I can’t think of why a PanOptix toric would be worse than a monofocal AcrySof toric lens for your epiretinal membranes issue. The main disadvantage of the PanOptix is that it can cause halos and flaring of bright lights at night – like street lights and oncoming headlights from cars. Perhaps others could enlighten on what might be an issue…
Hello Masher100, dreams do come true but you may be overly optimistic. I had both eyes done 2 years ago at age 73. I hoped to be eyeglass free as well. I considered an option similar to what you described . One IOL for close up and the other for distance. I used that technique with eyeglasses and later with contact lenses. I also used the multi-focal contact lenses as well before my cataracts became too developed. I don’t recommend it. With glasses and contacts you can remove them when/if your depth perception becomes a problem. With the IOL you are pretty much locked in. I opted to go with mono focal lens optimized for intermediate and distance vision. I do need readers for low light conditions and as I age, I depend on them more and more for general close up activities. My intermediate and distance vision are great for both day and night time conditions. So I still keep a pair of eyeglasses handy. That’s my story hope it is helpful to you.
Here is the name of one article that you may want to google and look at.
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Choosing between monovision and multifocals by Stefanie Petrou Binder Eyeworld