Looking for the best way to manage driving with only one eye having had cataract surgery. Option 1, I’ve tried wearing my pre-cataract surgery glasses. This improves my vision but feels off. I also wonder if this might be harmful to the healing of my just implanted IOL since I feel the muscles in my eye being strained, or at least that’s what it feels like. Option 2, using another pair of glasses, I’ll be having a blank lens installed instead of the prescription lens on the same side of my glasses as my operated eye. The downside here is that my operated eye is corrected for intermediate vision (-1.5D) not distance. Many thanks.
First I would suggest there is no danger of harming your eyes with the old glasses. The instructions I got from my surgeon were that one could wear whatever glasses you feel improve your vision. However, that said, your glasses with the new blank lens for the operated eye should be much better. There is no down side from having your operated eye at -1.5 D as long as your corrected distance vision is good from your un-operated eye. In most jurisdictions 20/40 is the minimum needed to drive.
You could use a contact lens in the unoperated eye or just pop the lens out of your glasses on the operated side. If you want to experiment with some different options (maybe driving glasses that distance-correct you unoperated eye as per your original prescription and a -1.5 in the other eye to sharpen up your IOL eye), single vision glasses online are cheap. Zenni is great… I’ve gotten single vision glasses there for as little as $30 that are fantastic. Never buy progressives online though as vertical lens placement is absolutely critical and there’s no way to do that online. Note that if there is a big difference in power between the two sides of your glasses the images from each eye will be noticeably different which can feel weird, however my brain adapted to it (I’ve had only one eye done for over a year now… long story).
Thanks David. Since my old glasses are rimless, I tried having the lens on the side of my operated eye removed and replaced with a blank lens, but that seemed weird as you mentioned. I’m not sure if that is more problematic than removing the lens entirely (not possible due to rimless glasses). I’m beginning to suspect that I may be sticking close to home while taking necessary trips with Uber.
I am not going to research if you already have a refraction prescription.
But cheap eyeglasses make sense for your temporary situation. America’s Best advertizes a lot, and they include the refraction. I think it can take a week or more to get the new glasses, from what I read.
When you have a cheap price advertized, expect upsell. Stand firm.
For this purpose, I think you only need single vision glasses for driving.
The only thing I’ve done so far is to swap a blank eyeglasses lens for a prescription lens on the side of my operated eye. I paid $80 for the blank lens but don’t like it! The technician helping me said the progressive lens on my unoperated side is an issue. I can ask my optometrist about single vision glasses for driving. Thanks for the suggestion.
Thanks David! My surgeon mentioned there is a 3 diopter difference now between my operated and unoperated eyes. Popping out the lens won’t work because these are rimless. Do I understand correctly that with single vision distance glasses, if there is a big difference in power between the 2 sides of my glasses, the images from each eye will be noticeably different. I do experience that with my new old glasses (1 blank lens, 1 prescription lens). This was to be a test for mini-monovision, and I’m thinking I’ve learned that I may not be a good candidate! Thanks very much for letting me know the pros and cons of single vision distance glasses!
To test for monovision you should use contacts, not glasses. With contacts the difference in image size will be minimal. With glasses its quite noticeable so its not a good approximation of what to expect. I thought you just wanted driving glasses.
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Again for driving glasses I would just go to the Zenni website and find some cheap frames you like. For the un-operated eye use you old prescription, For the operated eye use -1.5 Sphere. This could cost you as little as $30 depending on the frames so if it doesn’t work out it’s not too big a deal. But probably good enough for driving between surgeries. The glasses should make the difference between your eyes close to zero. The images from each eye will be a slightly different size but I think you’d adapt to that quickly.
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Again though for a monovison test, use contacts.
What is it that you don’t like about the blank lens arrangement? With this just a temporary solution until the second eye is done, I am not sure I would break the bank on more glasses now. If you can manage until the second eye is done and healed, it is probably worthwhile to get progressives for both eyes for situations when you need it. And even then, they may not be necessary. I would wait until the second eye is done, if it is at all possible.
Keep in mind that the blank lens is not a perfect simulation of mini-monovision as the image size from each eye will be slightly different. With mini-monovision the refraction adjustments are made at the IOL plane of both eyes and this mismatch in image size will essentially go away.
Thanks! Good to know!
I think it may be the different image sizes. Something is different of course and I wouldn’t wear the glasses with the blank lens unless perhaps for driving. That said, I’m not sure which is safer, these modified glasses or no glasses. One thing I noticed when wearing the modified glasses is I am conscious of the bottom rim of the blank lens. Seems like it rides high but looking in the mirror it looks the same.
I asked the technician yesterday about a new pair of glasses but he said they could not use my previous prescription as it is over a year old.
Seems to me it is worthwhile to keep in mind that this is only a temporary solution. The difference in image size bothered me to some degree, and I addressed it by wearing a contact instead of glasses most of the time. But, I still got used to the eyeglasses solution after a while.
My dry eye specialist said it would be OK to try a contact lens. My optometrist wrote a prescription and I called the optical shop to order. Wow! - $300 for one lens! Of course I asked for a gas permeable lens. I imagine soft lenses would be much less expensive?
You don’t want gas permeable for an eye that’s going to have cataract surgery soon. Hard contacts alter the shape of the eye enough that surgeons want you to stop wearing them for a considerable length of time before the surgery. Maybe when you just get one for a short period to try that’s not the case, but even start down that path? With soft contacts I think they still want you to stop wearing them for a while before the surgery, but it’s more like a week or two. For confirmed wearers of hard lenses it’s liable to be 8 weeks.
Since I’ve worn hard contacts for over 50 years I’m facing that problem right now.
Go to another optical shop. One optical shop told me that years ago and I just went to another optical shop that used the same prescription.
Just order soft daily contacts online
The driving glasses are just temporary right? If you go to your optometrist they will charge you an arm and a leg. Why spend hundreds of dollars for glasses you’re just going to toss once the second eye is done? Forget about your optometrist and order a pair of glasses online (I use Zenni) for maybe $50-$60. That includes frames and lenses. Use the old prescription for the un-operated eye (doesn’t matter if it’s a year old… it’ll be close enough) and -1.5 for the IOL eye. If they work, great. If not, at least you didn’t spent a fortune.
Daily soft contacts are in the order of 1$ each, with some a little more and some a little less. For a trial I would go with soft contacts. If you are near a Costco they will typically give you 5 contacts free for a trial. I like the Kirkland Signature contacts which are really the CooperVision MyDay lenses. Alcon Total 1 are good too.