Both eyes now have Panoptix Pro IOLs installed. Bandage was removed at the clinic yesterday.
The second eye measured 20/20 vision immediately. It was pretty amazing when they removed the gauze dressing and I could immediately read the eye chart on the wall. They said “Read the top line.” I read the top line, and then the second, and then the third, and then the fourth, and then the fifth line going pretty easily to the 20/20 level. It was also clear that this correction was better than the first eye had been. (And that one was still excellent, at about 20/30.)
The day before this second surgery, wearing glasses over one eye and IOL lens in the other, I was seeing double. Couldn’t get stereoscopic or binocular vision to work — two images most of the time. Without glasses on I had some depth perception, but poor quality because of the one uncorrected eye.
It reminded me that a major reason I had trouble with baseball and basketball in grade school was that I had such poor stereo vision with glasses even at the age of 12 or so. Getting contact lenses as an adult was liberating to me, as it restored that critically-necessary stereoscopic component of my vision. And for 6 weeks, in the run-up to the surgery I had returned to that world of glasses. It had left me in a cranky mood.
Now with the bandage removed, my stereo vision immediately worked perfectly. (Had I been worried? Yes.) I knew I had been suffering some eye strain from the mismatch and it was really bothering me after two weeks of going around that way. My depth perception with glasses was terrible, and I was on occasion just kind of stumbling around. Never tripped or fell, but was pretty shaky at times because of it. Immediately after the bandage came off, I had no problem with depth. When leaving the clinic I could see steps on the stairway and cracks in the sidewalk. And avoid them, of course.
Within a couple of hours I again noticed a kind of “screen door effect” or moiré pattern in the new eye, on the outer edge of my visual field. I had noticed this after the first IOL implant (on the right eye) and it had become less and less visible over the week. The pattern was more visible in the second eye. At the edge of my vision there is a kind of a flickering screen door effect as I cast my eyes left or right. This is certainly due to the concentric rings of the lens. It kind of causes a bit of what I would call a flicker or stutter as I move my eyes left or right. It is more visible in low light, and I’d guess this is because my pupil opens to a larger size in low light, meaning more of the IOL surface area is involved, and consequently more of the concentric rings. This is just an observation and definitely not a malfunction at all. I think it speaks to the design of the lens and how the brain adapts to it.
Upon returning home from the clinic, I used the prescription eye drops for the very first time in the second eye. Then after taking a shower I noticed that my vision was clouded up like steam on a hot shower door, glass shower door. It was a bit unnerving — maybe some tapwater washed through the eye? Or maybe it was a lot of light scatter that the brain couldn’t yet filter out. But it persisted for a few hours and eventually cleared.
Reading text, and iPhone screen up close, are now absolutely focused and sharp. This had not been easy for me even with contact lenses, and especially in a dark room at night. Now everything is exceptionally clear and easy to focus on, even down to maybe 8 inches in front of my nose.
This is going to be great! Maybe I’ll give this writing thing a rest for a while now and check in after a few days or weeks.