Which Kind of Cataract Eye Surgery Should I Get?
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I have been myopic (near-sighted) since 3rd grade and presbyopic (far-sighted) since c. age 53. And now I have cataracts slowly developing. Which kind of new lenses should I have installed in my eyes?
- Monofocal: optimal distance vision and better for glare from headlights at night. Would need reading glasses.
- Multifocal: wouldn’t need classes at all, but distance vision would be worse than with monofocal, and night glare would be worse.
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And now I have cataracts slowly developing.
You should do neither until the cataracts actually start diminishing your vision.
I can’t believe you weren’t presbyopic until 53. Go for monofocal. Buy glasses for reading. Bifocal glasses are expensive and don’t work for most people.
Go with the Monofocal. Great for driving at night, and you get to wear those silly half glasses for reading like Ted Kennedy and Chuck Schumer.
What do you do more often? Reading or (night) driving?
I’m going through this at the mo. Go with first choice.
Surely, you would have to weigh the respective pros and cons of each that you enumerated according to your personal priorities and lifestyle. How often do you drive at night? How would you rank, comparatively, the nuisance of glare vs. the nuisance of having to wear glasses? How important is distance vision to you? Etc., etc.
Would you prefer wearing glasses to attending classes (presumably for vision training)?
test
Is ‘guet’ an intentional error, you know, to demonstrate nearsightedness?
You spend the vast majority of your time reading or typing, don’t you? I would get lenses adjusted for close vision and put glasses on for your midnight rampages on the road.
Small sample, but the people I know who got the multi focal lenses say neither their near nor far distance vision is what they hoped for. Also glare from lights at night can be bothersome.
https://s.abcnews.com/images/WNT/abc_wn_king_120617_wg.jpg
https://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/steve_sailer_youtube-1044x550.jpg
BTW, there is at least one quote-poster site that dares to feature our hero:
https://quotefancy.com/media/wallpaper/3840x2160/1579333-Steve-Sailer-Quote-Monogamy-is-a-huge-time-saver.jpgReplies: @Bert
Or just get a bigger car.Replies: @Reg Cæsar
Steve, I had cataract surgery last year on one eye. I chose monofocal to correct for distance and to reduce glare. Monofocal lenses are less complicated than multifocal, just do it and forget it. I also corrected the eye to 20/20 vision and use a contact lens to correct the other eye. Reading glasses aren’t a big deal compared to corrected vision for driving, golf, skiing, etc.
Multifocal sounds similar to mid-to-near variable focus eyeglasses (I’m not sure what the proper name is in English). These are good in the house, in stores, and for watching television. There’re not the best for driving or watching movies in a theater. They are not as good for computer screens or books as custom reading glasses are. Reading glasses usually have a skosh greater magnification, and you don’t have to tilt your head up and peer down your nose to read. I sometimes just plant eyeglasses a bit up my forehead, leaving semi permanent marks on my skin, to bring the reading band of the lens lower.
How this would work with something actually in your eyeball I don’t know.
At one point I had five different eyeglasses: far-near, mid-near, near-nearer (deskwork and computer), reading, and movie (constant focus like reading, but with far focus). I’d choose a couple to take with me whenever I went out. I like eyeglasses, so I bought the same design in five “colors” of tortoise shell style plastic.
You live in LA, which means lots of driving and artificial light at night, so go with the former. Also golf. Don’t you want good distance vision for that?
Get one of each, but make sure the multifocal is Not on the dominant eye because there is a bit of a fuzzy interface between near and far vision that will effect your ability to get the front sight on target quickly. No, I’m not kidding.
You will be happy you did it, tho’.
I’d go for distance acuity myself. I would want to avoid the corrective lenses designation on the driver’s license (glasses under motorcycle helmets sucks which isn’t your issue but is dear to me), plus you want good distance vision out on the golf course (a concern I KNOW is dear to you). We do 99% of our reading on screens enabling us to control-scroll the type bigger if need be, so the near vision isn’t as critical. I’m still 20/20 or better so I’m not faced with this one yet. I’m told protecting my eyes from the sun like a fanatic my whole life from flight decks to millions of highway miles saved me these troubles. It worked.
There’s something to be said for delaying the procedure if it’s practicable. Maybe they’ll develop a better lens. It’s also possible that they will mess you up like ‘they’ did to Fred Reed (different procedure). I would guess that for most people here, reading is much more important than driving. If I couldn’t drive at night, life would be ok I think. If reading became difficult, I don’t know what I’d do.
Monofocal. Driving at night more important than not having to wear reading glasses.
My brother went with multi-focal a couple of years ago. He is happy. The doctor/lens combo was a few thousand (maybe $5,000) above the covered amount. Somehow, I think that was a big factor.
Why not use ordinary glasses?Why would you want lenses installed in your eyes?
Back in the day, after doing this people would indeed use glasses to correct for their now missing lenses but they had to be really really thick glasses (and without them you were as blind as a bat). The reason you want lenses installed in your eyes is to replace your now missing natural lenses without having to wear coke bottle bottom lenses for the rest of your life. The implanted lenses usually work great. It's great to be all natural they way people were back in the day, but back in the day a lot of people also went blind from cataracts.Replies: @James J O'Meara, @BB753
Monofocal. The only issue (close vision) can be corrected with glasses. The multifocal option has issues that cannot be corrected.
try multifocal contacts first. my brain does not adjust to them well and I need glasses for near and far after surgery. it would be nice to do without for distance.
also I think there is better depth perception without glasses
you can also try distance only correcting contacts and see how much a hassle needing reading glasses is for you
Definitely monofocal if you drive much, especially at night.
Disclaimer: I had a detached retina, and the fix for that causes cataracts, hence new lens.
A middle-class looking white couple in their ‘60’s comes in. The husband says to the receptionist, a latina, “you should get a TV in here so we can watch Fox News.” She replies, “we can’t afford it.” I go in for the prelim, and when I come out there’s a second white couple of the same age. He’s about 250 and looks like Ben Davidson, and she’s tall and stringy, the type you often see on the back of a Harley. I guess the two couples had been talking, lady #2 says Fox is totally compromised, and couple #1 should instead watch something called “One America.” I was sitting there in fear of getting cancelled by association.Replies: @Achmed E. Newman
Long time reader, ophthalmologist (and retina specialist) here, just a warning – there’s a generalized stat that I teach my residents and fellows about anyone who receives a multifocal lens and it’s this:
10 percent love them
10 percent hate them
80 percent don’t find they help
100 percent paid full premium price
I have a non-trivial amount patients who come in wanting these multifocal lenses removed after placement (which requires my involvement as a retina guy and is a much more involved surgery than the initial cataract surgery). In other words, they may work for you, but if they don’t, then you’re in for a world of annoyance. Tread carefully. If anything, use trial frames/multifocal or bifocal contacts prior to the surgery to see if you enjoy the situation of “static multifocality depending on where you look” or not.
That being said, I cannot stress enough the idea that if you are used to glasses for reading, then that’s what you should emulate post surgery. It’s really no big deal for a presbyopic patient who is used to “not using” glasses at distance. However, if you do select a monofocal lens, make sure to emulate whatever situation that you “don’t use glasses for” at present. If it’s “I use glasses for everything”, then consider targeting distance for the monofocal lens, so you’re in a state where you’re mainly using glasses for reading, as that tends to be more natural.
As an aside, since you tend to be interested in these things, a small pedantic point: presbyopia means you cannot accomodate (i.e. your RANGE of vision no longer includes a swath of focal points, traditionally including that which corresponds to the small print). It does not necessarily mean far-sighted, which goes by the term “Hyperopia”. “Myopia/Hyperopia/Emmetropia” specifically refer to the basic STATIC INITIAL state of one’s baseline ability to see without glasses – thus someone can be “Hyperopic and presbyopic” (i.e. they’re far-sighted at baseline, but also have lost the ability to have a range of vision at any other focal point) or “Emmetropic and presbyopic” (i.e. they’re perfect at distance but again, have lost the ability to have a range of vision, so they need help seeing at any other focal point), etc.
I personally dislike wearing reading glasses. But that's just a tic -- I'd certainly get beyond this in light of everything you've said.
It almost sounds to me as if you're saying that we're basically doing a large-scale beta test on cataract patients and so far, the results favor monofocal.
Thanks again.
Multifocal: wouldn’t need classes at all
Pretty pathetic if you have to be taught to see.
I’ve had a mild cataract in one eye for over 5 years and it doesn’t seem to be getting worse–yet.
I managed to put off progressive lenses until age 57 by using brighter light when reading. It finally dawned on me that it just meant part of it was less strong–not a convex lens like an idiot had me wear at age 6 when I was too near-sighted to read a foot away.
I got what used to be called monovision with contact lenses: one near and one distance. For middle distance like PC use I need glasses.
The optho wouldn’t have gone along with it if I hadn’t been wearing my contacts that way for years so that my brain had adjusted to it.
It worked great at first, very clear, but now I am getting secondary cataracts. I can still drive and watch TV without but have to read my ebooks pretty close up.
The sun is really killer here though so I end up wearing glasses outside just got the UV protection.
I suggest the cheapest. The point is to get rid of the cataract(s), and the least complicated surgery will do that. In my case, no version was going to obviate glasses, which I have never minded wearing anyway.
I got a toric lens, which has two radii of curvature, and I also got astigmatism-correcting incisions. Seemed a good idea. But I think when I get my other eye done, I will do for myself as I just suggested for you.
I don’t know when that will be but it could be fast. I knew for years I was developing cataracts in both eyes. Then one eye rapidly (i.e., in a couple of months) got worse. I was out on a predawn bicycle ride, under a full moon. Through one eye I saw one moon; through the other I saw three. A month later, when I actually got the surgery, it was up to about seven. This is not the most common symptom but neither is it unknown. Anyway, I’m back down to 1.0 moons/eye!
I did not know that double refraction is, in nature in general if not eyes in particular, common. Most crystal structures – not just calcite’s – will show it. The things you learn!
That’s what I did. Monofocal lenses corrected to 20/50 and use glasses for driving and performances but I don’t need reading glasses for close work. I actually enjoy being a little under corrected in public. I notice less, like the jackass at the next table, and this makes me happier.
Small sample, but the people I know who got the multi focal lenses say neither their near nor far distance vision is what they hoped for. Also glare from lights at night can be bothersome.
I’m pretty sure you’ll be lucky if you get the results you expect either way. I didn’t and neither has anyone else I’ve talked to. That’s not a bad thing, really, as you adjust to whatever the outcome. One person I know ended up far sighted in one eye and nearsighted in the other. And she adjusted just fine.
I am severely myopic and have geriatric presbyopia as well. I wear multifocal glasses but my contacts are monofocal. I bird, fish and hike and the loss of distance is too much. Also found my night vision impaired driving at night. So I use monofocal contacts and readers. Since you golf, I’d keep my distance vision.
Why are you getting implants; can’t they just scrape the cataracts off?
I asked my eye doctor about getting lenses that would leave me nearsighted, like now, and he said he’d never heard of that, but I read and do close detail work and want to be able to continue. Some of my friends who also do highly detailed work have stayed nearsighted and liked it. He recommended monofocal and said I could get various strengths of reading glasses for everything. I haven’t gotten the surgery yet, but for you I vote monofocal for golf. I hear that the “one eye for far vision, one eye for close” lenses suck. Do they even make those anymore?
I’ve got the multifocal. Overall – great. I rarely put on a pair of reading glasses; only for very small print. Weeks at a time without using any glasses at all. I do a lot of reading, including magazines and newspapers and books.
However, I can’t read really small print; and, when I play golf, I lose sight of my ball after about 170 yards. I see it that far, then lose it. My doc did advise that I would not see very small print, or have good acuity at far distances.
I haven’t had any night glare problems.
Hope this is helpful.
Just don’t use a surgeon that advertises on the radio. Get a good one.
Consumer Reports had a site where they provided data that had been obtained via FOIA request from Medicare. They looked at the outcomes of surgeries and rated the doctors, taking into account the number of reports, as to whether the surgery they perfomed actually helped over and above random chance. I.e. whether they were really better surgeons.
In any event, it's worth doing whatever research you can. It's not easy to find information because the medical profession doesn't want you to know how good or bad individual doctors might be. The official position of medical associations is that all doctors are above average.
How much night driving are you going to do as you get older? With multifocal, you won’t have to worry about forgetting where you left your glasses.
Difficult to say.
An acquaintance of mine, in his early 60s, had a surgery 2 years ago, multifocal lenses (he reads a lot, so he didn’t want to bother with glasses). And he has been experiencing a “dry eye” syndrome for some time, even before the operation.
He says that individual consultation with expert ophthalmologists would be the best, since most cases differ, due to various metabolic & physiological processes of a person. He’s not sorry for going multifocal, but wouldn’t recommend it to others – things are uncertain.
Since he reads a lot, he said he has some problems with reading books, and less so with reading from the computer screen.
Also, at night, his vision is frequently blurred due to the appearance of Newton’s rings.
So- ask more specialists & if you can, other people’s experiences with both options…
Why is your first choice surgery? Ever think of looking into the use of Vitamin K, normally found in cruciferous vegetables?
Not being able to feel confident driving around is not good for a man. However, an ex-Navy Seal friend of ours has some injury-related thing in his lower legs, and it’s the wife who does the longer drives, those above an hour. Never seen him affected in his self-confidence.
How much do you read that the font size could be adjusted?
You are doing both eyes at the same time?
Monofocal hard lens: mom in-law of one friend and wife of another both got them, say they’re fine. Wearing glasses is just part of life, the operation shouldn’t be about this, but about making everything clearer, and life easier.
Post-op vision was reportedly stylish and cartoonish the first days, then gradually softening into realistic clarity.
Good luck!
Steve, go back and read some of the comments at iSteve and then remember you are asking us for medical advice. Calling Doctor Tiny Duck.
Boomer faith in the professions is really something to behold.Replies: @SunBakedSuburb
I have severe degenerative myopia. I have “Medically necessary contacts”. I find wearing strong contact lenses for distance and reading glasses over them to be much better than weaker glasses for close reading. I would go with distance lenses and reading glasses.
Monofocal. Multi focal is an optical compromise.
You can get reading glasses prescribed precisely for the distance at which you read and do desk work. They don’t have to be stylish, since you work at home. You could, for instance, have large lensed ‘70s style glasses that give you the advantage of a wide, well focused field of view of your workspace.
A more important consideration, as we age but go on driving, is sharp distance vision and the minimum possible nighttime glare. Glare is tiring, but in the elderly, can also add significantly to confusion and slow down reaction time while driving. More do than in the young, I recall reading.
All the best with the procedure, Mr. Sailer
I’ll soon be facing the same decision myself. As I understand it, multifocal is just two different lenses; one for distance and the other for close-up. I’ve tried this with contacts, and couldn’t tolerate it. Reading glasses are cheap, and I leave them scattered about at home, the office, in the car, etc. I haven’t worn contacts often since I started working from home. I just put on glasses if I need to see far off. Monofocal is the choice for me.
I started wearing glasses in the 3rd grade too. My father had my eyes examined after I kept asking him the score of a football game he took me too. He told me to read the scoreboard, and I replied, “What scoreboard?”
My vision improved from -3.50 correction needed in the early 80’s to -1.50 now. I’m sure yours did something along the same lines.
Monofocal. Dominant eye optimized for long distance. Other eye optimized for mid-distance. Readers for close distance and in my opinion leave the third eye uncorrected.
I don’t believe multifocal and golf work well together. It would be equivalent to playing with bifocals on.
No surgery. Embrace aging, accept blindness, save your dwindling wealth, focus on spiritual transformation, for your body is just a leaf peeling away.
Dear Mr. iSteve Sir,
You wrote:
I have been myopic (near-sighted) since 3rd grade and presbyopic (far-sighted) since c. age 53. And now I have cataracts slowly developing. Which kind of new lenses should I have installed in my eyes?
Monofocal: optimal distance vision and better for glare from headlights at night. Would need reading glasses.
Multifocal: wouldn’t need classes at all, but distance vision would be worse than with monofocal, and night glare would be worse.
I have been myopic since 8th grade, presbyopic since 50+, and cataracts are starting to develop. I have glasses for driving, computer distance (24″ +)_ and reading (10″). If I get laser surgery, I am going for the computer distance. It would allow me to read … at arms length, but read nonetheless. This is useful in the grocery store. I can also drive safely (35 mph) even if I misplace the driving glasses. Plus, the correction for driving after surgery requires thinner lenses, and regular drugstore-bought reading glasses would work.
Glare at night is serious. I would go with monofocal.
I’d like to clarify my comment on the use of Vitamin K as a remedy for cataracts, basically because what is obvious to me through extensive study and experiential knowledge does not bear out in such as simple comment.
Firstly, modern Western medicine combined with the social construct formed by media narrative and educational indoctrination results in thinking processed in the general population that fit an agenda based on mercantilism. So the question many/most people fail to ask is if there is a basis for the truth of this narrative inherent in human existence and whether there are other alternatives that are quite possibly more efficacious. So, certainly there are other options, but perhaps none [falsely] claiming to offer immediate relief from an ailment – such as surgery and [toxicological] pharmaceuticals.
Second, Western medicine seems to be geared toward ‘waiting’ for an ailment to occur, then steps in with a remedy. In the West, we have what is called ‘preventative’ medicine, but we have no sociological tradition that indicates simple steps we can by ourselves [as opposed to “science-based” ‘authoritative’ recommendations] take to prevent future disease. For example, to prevent cataracts at an advanced age [all other factors being taken care of], one should consume vitamin K rich foods, or to prevent tooth abscess one should rinse with warm salty/or sodium bicarbonate/or oregano oil/etc. after brushing each morning and in the evening. These are in the realm of Holistic or Naturopathic medicine, but I find that the practitioners usually lack a sufficiently deep level of understanding and study to be effective.
Thirdly, if a malady such as cataracts arises, it has likely manifested over a period of time. So to claim immediate relief through surgery is the leave the basic causes of the malady in place. The question then has to be asked is whether is is better for the human organism to seek the ‘immediate’ alternative [surgery in this case], or to work toward ‘backing out’ of the the malady by taking more holistic measures. The former alternative offers perhaps relief, but fails to spur imaginative investigation of the human condition and potential, which I (personally) find much more satisfying in life.
Lastly, about five years ago I was diagnosed with a torn meniscus in my right knee. The Western doctor I went to advised the only way to resolve this is to perform a knee replacement. But studying the results on different patients had shown that there are rather severe difficulties with knee replacements both immediate and later in life – eg. from severe pain that cannot be relieved to heart attacks from the stress. So I tilted my head and said, ‘Well, maybe I can rebuild in organically’ – so I studied the issue and spoke with various naturopathic physicians and even looked into the aspect of ‘energetic pathogen’ collecting in the joints as a result of mental/emotional/physical factors inherent in Western [mercantilist] culture. You know what, combining the most promising methods of each level of investigation, my meniscus problem originally manifested as an extremely sharp pain, is gone. Totally repaired by itself.
This is why I asked the question, ‘why is surgery your first alternative?’. And so, it’s highly possible that one can correct a cataract problem naturally, but it will take study and time, and perhaps save some aspects of sight in the long run. It’s a choice that is available, should one decide to go this route.
One way to arrive at “no glasses at all” is called “monovision” – one eye corrected for distance vision and the other for close work.
Whatever I’ m looking at is in focus; the brain ignores whichever eye is blurry. It sounds odd, but I was pre-adapted for it because as a child I was quite nearsighted in one eye and extremely so in the other. My glasses (from when I started school) corrected the former to normal for distance and the latter to merely “quite” nearsighted. Later, when I wore contact lenses, they were interchangeable even though my eyes were quite different. And after cataract surgery, the equivalent lenses are inside my eyes and I don’t need glasses, even for driving.
Some ophthalmologists will refuse to do this even when you are certain that’s what you want.
They both tried it out first with contacts and adjusted well and are quite happy with the decision several years down the road.
Before they did it, i'd never even heard of this whole concept, but it seems that it works (or can work) fine even for those whose both eyes were corrected to 20/20 for most of their lives. It's definitely something i'm keeping in mind for when my time comes.
You might want to consult with Dr. Pit Gills at St. Luke’s Cataract & Laser Institute in Tarpon Springs ,FL. Pit’s dad James wanted to buy my girlfriend’s billboard company in 1990. James graduated from Duke Medical School and did 150 cataract surgeries a week back then, if memory serves. By 1991 I think he’d done over 70,000 procedures. Lots of doctors disapproved of him doing so many operations but others figured he was the best in the world at what he did. I think Dr. Gills used to run or bike ~20 miles to work each day. Dr. James is retired but he has his son Pit running the show now. Pit graduated from Vanderbilt and Duke Medical School. Pit is supposed to have extensive knowledge of various types of lenses, might be a good guy to talk to.
https://www.stlukeseye.com/about-the-gills/
The former. You don’t want to deal with added sensitivity to night glare. Not unless you’re planning to stay in your house after dark from now on. Plus reading glasses are no impediment—as someone who has been lifetime nearsighted, I’m finally getting to the age where I need the close up boost, and it hasn’t been a problem to don the reading glasses.
There is a cure in the works against presbyopia. Several, in fact, but as far as I know only one of them is an actual cure instead of a temporary fix.
The most promising drug is called UNR844-Cl from Novartis.
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03809611
https://www.globenewswire.com/en/news-release/2021/03/11/2190922/0/en/Presbyopia-Pipeline-Analysis-Emerging-Therapies-Continue-to-Transform-Clinical-Landscape-of-Presbyopia.html
It doesn’t completely cure all the participants in the trial but it cures some and benefits everybody. It seems to be well tolerated, has basically no side effects, and the improvement lasts for at least a year.
Don’t get an operation that would prevent you from benefitting from this drug in a couple of years!
(In other words: go for monofocal, if any. My step sister got a multifocal one recently but her presbyopia is VERY severe.)
Just go blind. It’ll do wonders for your introspection. Not to mention your posts.
Neil Postman made the point that the invention of magnifying glasses, like the invention of the clock, both by Catholics, were technologies that destroyed philosophical/religious underpinnings of our “then” world. The invention of glasses demonstrated the improvement of man that the enlightenment promised – victory over decay!
The clock destroyed the eternal.
With the invention of the clock, so as to make exact the prayers of Benedictine monks in worship of our Lord and Creator in His exactitude, they also unwittingly destroyed the concept of eternity.
Beethoven became better with deafness. Some degree of physical blindness would immeasurably improve your appreciation of life.
Like Wokeism, it's a way for people to pretend to be superior ("Oh, unlike you materialist sheep, I perceive the terrible cost of these fripperies.") while these Ignatius Reilly conservatives .never walk the walk. The Woke do it by calling badwhites racists, while living in all white communities, sending kids to private schools, etc.
Richard Weaver, considered a saint or even a God by these types, thought that shoes corrupted the purity of the Southern soul. At least, that's what he wrote from his air-conditioned office at the University of Chicago, with his feet, shod of course, on the desk.
The late Brother R G Stair, who died at 87 last April, ran the Overcomer farm commune down in SC. While awaiting the Apocalypse ("Soon!") his followers eschewed jobs, money, houses, cars (thus, no debt, no need for job or money), Social Security (he opted out) and especially medicine. All were tools of the Devil, designed to rope you into the NWO and take the mark of the Beast. He was crazy, and a sexual predator, but by God he was no hypocrite!
Him I respect.Replies: @Pat Hannagan
A very difficult question, and you won’t get a single good answer here, certainly I don’t claim to have one.
I know a senior optical engineer who works on these lenses, and this person opines that ‘what type of intraocular lens do doctors prescribe? In general, for people with bad insurance, the cheapest model; for people with good insurance, the most expensive one. Neither is necessarily the best optically.’
It’s a shame that there isn’t some kind of simulator people can use to try out different options, given that this is (effectively) a one-time irreversible decision.
Note that you will likely need at least weak glasses for distance vision anyway. Remember, when they install the lens, they can’t adjust it like they can glasses “what’s better, one or two?”. They use optical modeling and take careful measures of the dimensions of your specific eyes, and they guess, and they have gotten pretty darn good at this, but they still could be off a little bit.
Yes, the people I know with implanted lenses complain most about glare at night.
I would go with the single focus, but that’s just my opinion. My own eyesight is so poor that having to wear relatively weak reading or distance glasses seems hardly a nuisance, I’d like my overall vision as clear as possible even if I need to switch glasses near/far.
My preference would to have better distance vision. I still hit the ball far enough to lose it and that is very, very annoying. I like my reading glasses.
This video is a really eye-opening documentation of how feminism (low fertility) has destroyed our culture and our economy:
Long story short… 70 year old standard-issue military boots were higher quality than the artisan stuff that sells for +$500 today.
They had thicker, higher quality leather, because back in the days before universal high-school education and anti-natalism, we had lots of hard men employed in aggressive activities like herding cattle, peeling and fleshing hides, and tanning them. Leather actually used to be cheap back in the days when we had huge numbers of hard men killing animals nonstop, and they all reproduced voraciously because no one could tell them otherwise, or they’d be eating a knuckle sandwich. But no, you can’t have that anymore… Some little whiny feminist bitch got her way.
Is this going to make you mad enough to slam your computer off, get out there ans start punching people in the fucking god damn face? Boy if this won’t do it, I don’t think anything will. Get a sex change if you don’t kill at least one farm animal today.
Make the choice that reconstructs your current eyesight without glasses. That’s what a conservative should do.
It occurs to me that you could have a multifocal lens in 1 eye and a monofocal in the other, Not sure how that would affect your depth perception. Most important thing would be to get a super experienced doctor IMO.
“I have been myopic (near-sighted) since 3rd grade” much like your understanding of history.
Have you ever considered *you* were the bad guys in the world wars?
I know the Mitchell and Webb joke is supposed to pertain to the present battles but, have you ever considered against the tide of everything you were indoctrinated as a kid, everything your old man assumed (he had no access to the information you now know), after all the validated evidence against your inchoate hatred of the Irish and Germans that, perhaps, you were and remain so, on the side of pure evil?
Could your cataracts be an indication from God that you need to re-examine your just-so stories? (Everything about you is a consequence of your victories)
Nah. But thanks for the self-reveal!
Monofocal, 100%. You’re probably already used to reading glasses.
If you’ve not worn multifocal glasses before, I’d at least try them for a while before getting multifocal eyeballs.
Crusty old farthood includes the eyes, so there’s a wealth of experience here, then he can do the opposite.
Had both eyes done in 2004 – really happy with the result. Had one eye done and the other a month later. One thing I was not expecting was how yellow the original eye was when compared to the new one. Really surprising.
Get the Monofocal – like other people said, the vari or multi is a compromise. I have heard of people having them removed and monos retrofitted. I went for distance vision – tack sharp from five feet out. I can get around fine closer – make out the type on a computer screen OK. For reading, I use cheap Walmart readers – works perfectly. I figured I would rather see my readers from across the room than have to put on glasses to walk around.
Best wishes – your vision will be a bit weird for the first few days but it will settle down and you will be very very happy.
Monofocal. As has already been said, multifocal is compromise and is not natural to boot. The best doctor always does his best to replicate nature.
And don’t get reading glasses, get bifocal glasses. You will keep misplacing reading glasses and not having them with you when you need them. If you wear bifocals, with plain glass in the upper section in the even that distance vision needs no correction, then you put them on and leave them there. They are always there and you don’t have to worry about forgetting to take them with you.
Obvious choice. Reading glasses are no big deal. It’s much more important to have optimal distance vision and no haloes. I’m quite happy with my monofocal surgery; I was almost as blind as Stevie Wonder, (who, it turns out, isn’t completely blind).
P.S. It was sooo hard to avoid all of the obvious jokes about whether you noticed your spelling of “get.”
A low carb diet has stopped any progression for ten years, in my case.
Supposedly if you cut out refined sugar, your eyes will improve to the point where you won’t automatically need glasses as a function of age, but you will spend all your days staring wistfully at donuts.
Do you need to have new lenses installed? Seems to me you used to just be equipped with a set of glasses to compensate.
Your natural lenses, when you are young, are stretchy like rubber and your eyeballs have the ability to change their focal length by stretching or relaxing them (a really amazing piece of natural engineering). However, as you grow older your lenses gradually lose their stretching ability and become fixed at one focal length (usually at a focal length suitable for distance so you lose your close focus and need reading glasses when you get older, even if you always had good vision). This is called presbyopia.
Until recently, the replacement lenses were also fixed focus so you'd still need reading glasses (but since the replacement lenses are brand new and clear, suddenly everything is much clearer and brighter). Recently, multifocal lenses have become available. Rather than having one focal length like a magnifying glass, these lenses are made so that they can focus both near and far. This allows you to have some focus ranging from near to far but it is not 100% perfect.
Some people with presbyopia (but whose lenses have not become clouded with cataracts yet) are nevertheless opting to replace their lenses with the mutifocal type so that they can (hopefully) get rid of their reading glasses. I would not be in favor of doing that (or any unnecessary surgery) just to get rid of reading glasses but cataract surgery is different - there is no treatment for cataracts other than surgery and you are going to need new lenses in any case. The only question is which type.
Personally, I would go with the multifocal type because it's really nice not to have to depend on glasses. (Note though that Medicare only covers the cheap monofocal type). If you really, really don't like them you could have them removed later and replaced with monofocals (or some improved multifocal because more are coming on the market all the time) but most people are happy with them. There are several different brands on the market so you have to decide which one you prefer.Replies: @Visionary, @Art Deco, @Anthony Aaron, @TG
You seem to have encyclopedic knowledge about a huge number of things. I’m surprised at this apparent hole in your knowledge.Replies: @Justkidding
OT
The FBI lied about having nothing on murdered Clinton campaign leaker Seth Rich.
https://vault.fbi.gov/seth-rich/seth-rich-part-01-of-01/view
Also apparently the bad guys are going to do a bigger cyber attack in August, and will almost certainly blame it on “white supremacists.” This presupposes that whatever they focus on in their big meeting is the next torture experiment (eg, focusing on a plague before the Fauci lockdown).
I got the monofocal. I can see the golf ball, and not just the ones I dribble off the tee. Reading classes are cheap and work well.
If it were me, I would go with the monofocal and reading glasses route.
Haven’t had cataract surgery yet despite my age, but I recall that when I had laser surgery for near sightedness the doctor asked if I wanted to test if monovision works for me.
https://www.aao.org/eye-health/ask-ophthalmologist-q/can-i-wear-glasses-with-monovision#:~:text=Monovision%20is%20the%20planned%20imbalance%20of%20the%20glasses,one%20foot%20and%20a%20flat%20on%20the%20other.
In that case they would have made a prescription for contact lenses or glasses that would give me monovision and I would test them for a couple of weeks to see if my brain processing would adapt. Some people I know have natural monovision and didn’t even know it until told by an optometrist. They could just see fine both close and far even when older.
BTW my optometrist says the multi focal lenses suck. He has never had a patient who was happy with them.
He’s in the right place.
Boomer faith in the professions is really something to behold.
Other than that Steve's an honorary Xer.
I might not be getting the joke, but a key detail of this headline suggests that you might go the “better for reading” route.
If a Dr told you to get cataract surgery the very best in the area is;
Eye Medical Group 1908 Santa Monica Blvd Santa Monica Ca at Santa Monica Blvd and 20th st. 310 829 5475 Right in the St Johns complex. They even have a parking lot. About the only parking lot in the St John’s complex. Get Dr Stelzer. She’s tops developed new techniques.
Their surgery center is in Wilshire and 20th in Santa Monica Top team of nurses and assistants. You’re awake while she does it but don’t feel it.
Lots of insurance is geographical. Your insurance insist on a north of the mountains west of the 5 Dr. I’m so lucky I live a block into the St Johns system instead of the non White foreigner UCLA teaching hospital treated by interns and residents in training UCLA system.
UCLA med has a great public relations team.And mostly affirmative action Drs. St Johns has great mostly White American Drs and a larger proportion of White American men than any medical system in LA metro.
Call 310 829 5475 They probably have all sorts of irritating covid protocols.
Sorry Alden, but this made me laugh.
I could never live in a city.
☮
Steve,
DO NOT get the multi focal implants! I have been a practicing optometrist for almost 30 years and have provided post operative care for thousands of my patients after cataract surgery. By far, in my experience,the most frustrated patients after cataract surgery have been the ones who were myopic prior to surgery and opted for multi focal implants. They never achieve the crisp near acuity that they are accustomed to when they would remove their glasses. And no spectacle or contact lens Rx can provide that afterwards.
I would recommend mono focal implants set for distance or set at your normal working distance for near tasks ( as Mr. Canaday suggested above).
I find that the multi focal implants work best for people who were moderately farsighted before surgery and didn’t need glasses until later in life.
Good luck with your surgery.
1) halos around lights at night and in the dark kinda suck. Would not recommend a solution that will include them.
2) not cataracts but vision related: if you wear normal glasses with polycarbonate or high index lenses and have issues with halos or things look/feel weird whenever you move your eyes even during the day, try old school CR-39 plastic lenses instead. because
http://www.optmagazine.com/2016/02/29/abbe-number/
3) neither optometrists nor glasses techs told me this or (afaict) know about it even once i mentioned it. what's the deal?
--------
This message is partly answer to steve, partly a public service message to glasses wearers who might read it and partly trying to get the good doctor to answer for my issues with his co-professionals with whom he is in no way affiliated. :-)
My only first hand statement of experience is that i rather disliked night time halos around lights (which, note includes every LED, lit number display, exit sign, or store sign letter) when i saw them due to some incompatible glasses. As such i would not recommend an option that has that as a side-effect.
It wasn't just a driving issue; it was distracting basically whenever i was in a dark or somewhat dark environment. Even looking at the moon, iirc.
The story: I'm just a basic myopic guy (around -3.5D correction nowadays). Been wearing glasses for some decades, but on three occasions over the past 15 years i tried polycarbonate lenses or high index lenses 'cause "why not?" and all three times i got rid of them within a few weeks because "they seemed off" and also had halos around lights in the dark. All the times I went back to lame old CR-39 plastic and things were fine.
None of the optometrists or glasses techs i talked to had anything to say about why i'd have that reaction. The first attempt they made the glasses again (in case they were somehow "wrong" even though they measured correct) and eventually just said "yeah, some people don't adjust well them".
Eventually i realized that what i was noticing during the day was "off-axis aberration" of some type. So with my eyes straight forward the stuff in the middle of my field of view was clear but if looking through the side / top / bottom of the lens, even a little, things started getting blurry. Equivalently look at a fixed point and move your head around slightly and notice how the thing gets in and out of focus and, if at night, the halos change as you're looking through different parts of the lens. This happens with normal plastic lenses too afaict, but a lot less.
Anyway, blah blah ... eventually i found on the web the concept of Abbe number which is a quantification of an optical property of material called "dispersion" that basically causes that smaller sweet spot (and also chromatic aberration which also adds weirdness and causes halos). For normal plastic lenses this is as good as good glass, but for polycarbonate and other high index materials it's considerably worse.
There is now some material on the web about it (and there is some stuff going back to 2010 ) but it's one of those things that's much easier to find once you know key words like "chromatic aberration", "off-axis aberration" and "Abbe number" whereas "why are my new glasses weird?" and things like that were not so helpful.
Anyhow, Dr. Anon, why isn't this more widely known / said? The O.Ds in question all seemed "alright" alright as far as i could tell though definitely with mainstream practices. I think 3 of them were running their offices in Costcos around the area, but the last one has a private practice downtown that i picked because he's one of the few in the area who has (or at least advertises) the Zeiss wavefront measurement tech and lenses (which it turns out i wouldn't benefit from since i don't have too much "higher order" stuff going on. and i appreciate he didn't try to sell them to me anyway).
Monofocal–good distance vision is great–reading glasses from Walmart work fine–you will be astounded at how bright colors are once those cataracts are removed–it is like WOW!
Great question to ask your readers, Steve.
I too am pondering the same question, although I am older than you–will turn 73 in a few weeks. My cataracts have grown to the point it’s hard to read street signs. I wanted the surgery last year, but Covid prevented it.
I would wear glasses every waking second if it meant I could drive more safely at night
When I had cataract surgery, I opted for monoclonal, since I do a lot of night driving. Go with reading glasses. When I did a lot of office work I used computer glasses, focussed on the distance between eyes and monitor. I had 2 pairs one at work one at home.
I got the surgery 10 years ago. I have great faith in my surgeon and he recommended monofocal. I went with distance vision and have never regretted it. I use 1.50 reading glasses when working on the computer, but can actually read most type if I hold it at arm’s distance.
Not having reading glasses handy when you want to read something is an inconvenience, but not having distance glasses handy when you need to drive or do outdoor activities could be a far larger problem.
I suspected I had cataracts when I was no longer able to read street signs at a reasonable distance–everything was a little grainy. Only after the surgery did I discover that I had also been missing about 15 – 20% of the available light. I had been noticing that it seemed to get dark earlier than I thought it should–this was purely a result of my cataracts.
I may well go with single focal length, perhaps for mid range. Use special glasses to drive. And graft on extra-long arms to read. This has the added benefit of allowing one to scrub floors or do tile work without getting on one's knees.
Gone through the procedure (both eyes) just a few months ago. Monofocal for a lot of reasons (starting with driving and enyoing far landscapes), and I cannot start to understand why someone would wish to go the multifocal route. Having to use reading glasses is a very minor inconvenience. I actually have slightly different glasses to read and to use my PC, and those allow me to go through a normal working day (I’m 76) without getting sight troubles or developing a headhache.
I’m in exactly the same boat, Steve. I will need cataract surgery in the next few years. I’ve had intraocular contact lenses for the past 15 years or so, which have given me superb distance vision (20/15), after growing up severely near-sighted. I don’t think I could go back to any kind of compromised distance vision, so I’m leaning toward monofocal.
A lot of people don’t know this, but in Japan 60% of the population has Cataracts.
The other 40% drive Rincolns!
Steve, I’m trying to save your legacy mate: everyone knows that race exists. It’s been known since the time of the Ancient Greeks, probs before that but the Ancient Greeks have recorded their understanding of race, it’s not a secret.
Only you and your HBD mates like Charles Murray labour under the misapprehenmsion that what the world needs is your excellent tuition on what exactly constitutes race.
Seriously: everyone gets it.
We all know what race is and which races really piss us off.
What *you* need to work out is why everyone *pretends* race isn’t real.
Anybody here have any good luck using eye vitamins? these two popular brands have different ingredients (mostly)?
I had cataract surgery done two years ago. My ophthalmologist strongly recommended the monofocal lenses and didn’t even mention the multifocal option until I brought it up. His experience was that most patients regretted this option. (BTW, this group of doctors specialize in eye medicine, are located in Boston, and have an international reputation. People literally fly in from around the world to be treated by them.)
In the prelim to my surgery, I was extensively tested, and questioned about my daily activities. I have always been very near-sighted, so in my case the choice boiled down to how much improvement in my vision I wanted without correction. I opted for a lens that significantly improved my long distance vision, allowed working at the computer, reading, and getting around without glasses, but still required glasses for things like passing my state’s a drivers exam. A complication for me was that I’m a recreational shooter and was worried about my aim after surgery. Everything has worked out fine. (My brother was almost as as nearsighted as I but, since he doesn’t do nearly as much reading or computer work as me, opted for 20/20 vision. He’s also very happy with his new vision.)
BTW, the enhancement of colors after my surgery has been an extraordinary, almost mystical, experience. I’m not a poet so the following words cannot do justice to how much this surgery enhanced my life. Even two years later I still get an occassional feeling of awe and wonder when I see brilliantly green, multi-hued foliage against a background of blue sky fading to cerulean at the zenith, with white clouds in infinite subtle variations floating past. A glass of water seems like a miraculous, crystalline gem.
One other interesting experience is the visual hallucinations one may have in the covered eye after surgery. (The surgery is done one eye at a time and for the day after surgery the eye that has been operated on should remain covered.) These are complex and fascinating. They very much depend on the type of anesthesia one is given. They were much more pronounced and lasted longer for my first surgery than for my second, where a different Fentanyl analogue was used. It’s something to look forward to.
I have developed cataracts as a result of chemotherapy. I will see the eye doctor at the end of this month and see what he says. My first choice is the monofocal lens. I have friends and family members who are very pleased with it. I don’t mind wearing glasses at all. I’ve heard some rather unfavorable comments about the multifocal lens as well. I don’t want to trade one set of problems for another.
Glasses won’t compensate for glare.
I don't usually wear glasses for driving but I have found them to reduce glare while driving at night.Replies: @Mr. Anon
Hands down, I would go with the first option: “Monofocal: optimal distance vision and better for glare from headlights at night. Would need reading glasses.”
It’s better for driving and especially night driving. I have real problems with glare and will probably need new lenses. As Piltdown Man noted, glare effectively cuts reaction time and makes night driving difficult – eventually impossible. That could lead to a serious accident.
Reading glasses are a small price to pay to avoid that. Just get a few pairs so you’ll always have a spare.
Making a mistake reading a book won’t get you killed. Making a mistake while driving at night can. Get lenses for long distance.
Monofocal.
Keep things simple, and have fewer headaches.
If you need reading glasses sometimes, no big deal.
Boomer faith in the professions is really something to behold.Replies: @SunBakedSuburb
“Boomer faith in the professions is really something to behold.”
Other than that Steve’s an honorary Xer.
I have had cataracts for decades. Numerous ophthalmologists told me I needed surgery. Conversely, numerous optometrists told me that because the cataracts are not situated in the field of vision, I should NOT have surgery. I concluded that the ophthalmologists were, for various reasons, ahem, overly surgery-inclined. Maybe the optometrists are overly spectacles/contacts inclined. I do not have cloudy vision, and I have not had surgery.
You could do preview experiments, using contacts. I have had a few appointments at the optometry college in The OC. These consisted of a 90-minute appointment with the resident/fellow. She lacked a long spectrum of observations, but, she certainly had lots of time, and, the ability to leave the room to consult with faculty if necessary. The appt. included contact and spectacles testing using, not merely an eye chart, but rather, looking out windows at the real world, and, using a computer screen. Your future visual life will not be an eye chart. A 90-minute appointment, by the way, cost only $120. Some private optometrists will also find a way to do real-world testing — send you out into the world, and you return in half an hour or more.
The best eyecare in the world is Palmer at the Univ of Miami. (Of course.)
Go monofocal. I was both near sighted and with presbyopia, plus astigmatism and cataracts in my early fifties. Opted for monfocal for distance. Being a reading addict, I actually even considered the option of monofocal for reading — at the cost of wearing glasses for everything else. Fortuanately, doc talked me out of that. Surgery was 12 years ago and i now have 20 – 25 vision and often don’t even need glasses for reading when under good light. You’ll also find that early on colors will pop and world will take on a Disney/technicolor/carnival atmosphere. good luck and enjoy.
“Do you need to have new lenses installed?”
Art, I’ll put Steve in touch with my penis guy who also knows a lot about eyes. Give Steve the address to Jerry’s; he can get in touch with me there and I’ll send him pix of the penis guy’s office in Burbank.
I had one eye “lensed” for distance, and one eye “lensed” for close/reading/computer-phone stuff. My brain, somehow, switches back and forth seamlessly. One unique advantage is, when driving, I can read the instrument cluster and see down the road without glasses or maneuvering my head so that the bifocal reading lens is in place. Most “ancianos” like me , have some degree of cataracts and removing them gives an amazing improvement in seeing without glare .
“I will need cataract surgery in a the next few years.”
See my comment to Art Deco. I’m going to fix Steve up with a guy who knows a lot about eyes; maybe he can help you too. He might want to inspect your penis.
Steve, first make sure you really need the surgery. Sometimes worse vision can be an unfortunate outcome. “Cataracts slowly developing” is pretty normal and not necessary to be acted on right now (speaking generally).
To your question:
If you decide you must have surgery, monofocal seems to be the prudent choice. It would be easy to have reading glasses handy, rather than try to finesse a more complicated multifocal solution, which would be harder to correct for should your number change in the future. At least that’s how I understand it.
Obligatory layman wiki cite:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cataract#Postoperative_care
Best wishes on the surgery, Steve! I had Toric lenses put in about 7 or 8 years ago, and it may have been the closest thing to a medical miracle I’ve experienced in my life (so far.) I was near-sighted from adolescence due to astigmatism, so it was the first time I didn’t need glasses since I was in the seventh or eighth grade. What was most striking when my eyes were unwrapped after the surgery was that the straight lines of walls and picture frames were crisp and concise. Also, the cataracts were keeping some of the light out of my eyes. You might need (non-prescription) sunglasses much more often after surgery. I did.
They did monofocal type lenses for me, and gave me a choice between longer or shorter distance optimal vision. I went with longer distance, and I definitely don’t regret it. I definitely need rerading glasses for book distances, but I never need them for the computer.
I had 20/25 vision after surgery, but I was like 20/120 or worse uncorrected before surgery. Your results may be better. I have a new pair of prescription glasses (bifocals) but only use them for night driving. Not sure they had the multifocal implant option when I had my operation. The surgeon said that technology is advancing rapidly in this field. One warning he gave me: there’s a somewhat greater risk for detached retinas after this kind of surgery. (Not from the surgery, but afterwards.) Good luck.
My eye doc is monitoring my cataracts so it will be awhile before I get to your position.
I would go for the monofocal. I figure it this way: when you look up at the night sky through a telescope eyepiece, don’t you want to see pin pricks of light rather than little indistinct things?
I recall reading an article in Sky & Telescope decades back on LASIK surgery and astronomical observation. After reading that I came to the conclusion it really wasn’t for me.
I can’t give you any advice about what sort of lenses to get, but I’ll note that after my mother got cataract surgery, her eyes, if you caught them in the right light, would glow like a cat’s. It was kind of cool!
I spent shitloads of money on multi-focal because they hyped it so much. Of course you would ask this question after it’s too late.
Multi-focal sucks for me. Can’t see far. Can’t see close. Night driving is hell. Shit. Nobody ever gets both lenses to compare. But the monofocal’s got to be better than this.
Yes, anyone who has cataract surgery needs a new lens in each eye that is operated upon. There is no choice in the matter if you want your cataracts removed and your vision restored. A cataract means that your natural lenses have become cloudy. There is no way to restore the clarity of the lens. In cataract surgery, they shatter your natural lens ultrasonically and suction out the remnants. At this point you have no lens at all in your eye and you would be effectively blind if they did not replace it. But in fact they do replace it immediately. The entire operation is done thru a small hollow needle – the new lens is rolled up like a scroll and then unfurls inside your eyeball. You don’t even need a stitch for the needle puncture because the hole is so small.
Your natural lenses, when you are young, are stretchy like rubber and your eyeballs have the ability to change their focal length by stretching or relaxing them (a really amazing piece of natural engineering). However, as you grow older your lenses gradually lose their stretching ability and become fixed at one focal length (usually at a focal length suitable for distance so you lose your close focus and need reading glasses when you get older, even if you always had good vision). This is called presbyopia.
Until recently, the replacement lenses were also fixed focus so you’d still need reading glasses (but since the replacement lenses are brand new and clear, suddenly everything is much clearer and brighter). Recently, multifocal lenses have become available. Rather than having one focal length like a magnifying glass, these lenses are made so that they can focus both near and far. This allows you to have some focus ranging from near to far but it is not 100% perfect.
Some people with presbyopia (but whose lenses have not become clouded with cataracts yet) are nevertheless opting to replace their lenses with the mutifocal type so that they can (hopefully) get rid of their reading glasses. I would not be in favor of doing that (or any unnecessary surgery) just to get rid of reading glasses but cataract surgery is different – there is no treatment for cataracts other than surgery and you are going to need new lenses in any case. The only question is which type.
Personally, I would go with the multifocal type because it’s really nice not to have to depend on glasses. (Note though that Medicare only covers the cheap monofocal type). If you really, really don’t like them you could have them removed later and replaced with monofocals (or some improved multifocal because more are coming on the market all the time) but most people are happy with them. There are several different brands on the market so you have to decide which one you prefer.
We aren't at a state where we have a truly accomodative lens yet.Replies: @vhrm
Also … it is possible to have one eye with a distance lens implanted, the other with a near lens implanted.
Although without a natural lens you could see ultraviolet light directly. Not actually a good thing, adds glare and is bad for the health of the eye, so all implantable lenses today absorb UV like your natural lens.Replies: @Jack D
Whichever one makes you suffer more for hurting David french’s feelings
I’m scheduled for cataract surgery next month. I like my local optometrist, and he recommended that I have the surgery done by an outfit that is an hour away. Fewer bad results, he said. Having visited that outfit for pre-surgery consultation, I’m not so happy with them but I’m kind of committed to have them do it. The surgeon pushed for multi-focal, but I decided that I’m the kind of guy who would be bugged by that so am going with just “near”. I thought I only had a cataract in one eye (that someone stuck a thumb into many years ago! Cause of cataract? ), but it seems there’s also a cataract developing in the “good” eye. My “bad” eye has been pretty bad for maybe 5-6 years, but I thought I was doing fine with my one “good” (?) eye.
Best of luck on your eye situation.
I’ve seen ads from eye surgeons that offer financing. What happens if you don’t pay, do they repossess your eyeballs?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0LkMrPMMhw
Repo Men (2010) - Movieclips playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZbXA4lyCtqpYQy3BetiL1I0SPIc9oLdb
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bj1-ZcKqH34
https://www.joblo.com/assets/images/oldsite/posters/images/full/repo-men-poster3.jpg
https://www.joblo.com/assets/images/oldsite/posters/images/full/repo-men-poster2.jpg
Your natural lenses, when you are young, are stretchy like rubber and your eyeballs have the ability to change their focal length by stretching or relaxing them (a really amazing piece of natural engineering). However, as you grow older your lenses gradually lose their stretching ability and become fixed at one focal length (usually at a focal length suitable for distance so you lose your close focus and need reading glasses when you get older, even if you always had good vision). This is called presbyopia.
Until recently, the replacement lenses were also fixed focus so you'd still need reading glasses (but since the replacement lenses are brand new and clear, suddenly everything is much clearer and brighter). Recently, multifocal lenses have become available. Rather than having one focal length like a magnifying glass, these lenses are made so that they can focus both near and far. This allows you to have some focus ranging from near to far but it is not 100% perfect.
Some people with presbyopia (but whose lenses have not become clouded with cataracts yet) are nevertheless opting to replace their lenses with the mutifocal type so that they can (hopefully) get rid of their reading glasses. I would not be in favor of doing that (or any unnecessary surgery) just to get rid of reading glasses but cataract surgery is different - there is no treatment for cataracts other than surgery and you are going to need new lenses in any case. The only question is which type.
Personally, I would go with the multifocal type because it's really nice not to have to depend on glasses. (Note though that Medicare only covers the cheap monofocal type). If you really, really don't like them you could have them removed later and replaced with monofocals (or some improved multifocal because more are coming on the market all the time) but most people are happy with them. There are several different brands on the market so you have to decide which one you prefer.Replies: @Visionary, @Art Deco, @Anthony Aaron, @TG
As a retinal surgeon who performs many of these replacement surgeries, I can assure you it’s not easy nor is it without major risk, and I’d again state that most people either don’t care or have issues with multifocal lenses.
We aren’t at a state where we have a truly accomodative lens yet.
Is it even worth considering?
What's your feel about how long FDA approval is going to take for the likes of this Juvene IOLs ? is it like 3 years or like 10? (they had one study with 40 eyes in mexico over a year ago and it was good and got funding to launch US studies)
(https://www.massdevice.com/lensgen-closes-10-million-in-bridge-financing/)Replies: @anon
As Jack D explained, glasses don’t fix the problem with cataracts.
You seem to have encyclopedic knowledge about a huge number of things. I’m surprised at this apparent hole in your knowledge.
Do you need to have new lenses installed? Seems to me you used to just be equipped with a set of glasses to compensate.
As Jack D explained, glasses don’t fix the problem with cataracts.
You seem to have encyclopedic knowledge about a huge number of things. I’m surprised at this apparent BLIND SPOT in your knowledge.
Modified to the expected description
Steve, I had cataract surgery 15 years ago with multifocal lenses. No regrets. I would do it again.
Distance vision with the multifocal lenses is better than I had before surgery with either glasses or contacts. For computer work or in bright light I now use reading glasses. But in low light (like a restaurant or my living room) I can read without reading glasses.
It is very convenient to not have to carry reading glasses. I enjoy being in a restaurant with friends and they all whip out their reading glasses to read the menu, but I have no problem because of the multifocal lenses.
There is some night glare, but you will quickly adjust to it.
There are some times when the multifocal lenses are a compromise. But all things considered, the multifocal lenses are vastly better than glasses or contact lenses were. I wore glasses for over 40 years with very high myopia (-8.5).
I am an evangelist for multifocal lenses and will be glad to talk with you if you want to reach out.
Piker.
Last time I got a prescription, I made the mistake of pushing my face firmly against the equipment and ended up with -11.5, which aren't quite strong enough past 6 feet, particularly in low light, unless I smash my glasses against my face.
My ex-boss kept reading glasses in several locations so he wouldn't have to carry a pair with him.
You’re blind irrespective of your eye condition, Sailer. Viz:
CDC orders Americans to diaper up this coming flu/covid season when ‘community transmission is high’ – including people who got The Prick. CDC orders all people riding busses to diaper up at all times – yes, even The Pricked.
Done in ’21? It is to lolz: Don’t bet on it, my Covimbeciles.
But who predicted the Democratic sociopaths will never let the CoronaHoax end? Good ol’ Omar did. You’re welcome.
Insurance often doesn’t cover the multi focal lenses. It can be $1,00 to $1,800 for them. Sometimes you still need reading glasses after a few years.
I had LASIK performed 5 years ago for near sightedness and it’s been fine. What was interesting was the poor doctor who, I don’t know if it’s legally required or not, has to talk to everyone he performs the procedure on. He talked to me for 5 minutes, but not really. His eyes were vacant and if I had gotten up and left it seemed like he would’ve continued his spiel to the wall behind me until he was finished.
I would’ve been more irritated but I think those guys perform them like an assembly line. It’s a brief procedure, so they probably do a dozen possibly more a day.
Yes.
Come to think of it, has anyone ever seen these two men in the same room?
BTW, there is at least one quote-poster site that dares to feature our hero:
Repo Men – Trailer
Repo Men (2010) – Movieclips playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZbXA4lyCtqpYQy3BetiL1I0SPIc9oLdb
Finally– Repo Man 2!
It’s always about trade offs. I was a high myope from childhood and developed bilateral cataracts in my 50s and had mulitfocal IOLs placed. It was so wonderful to awaken in the morning and be able to see the clock across the room, make coffee, read the paper, and to just generally function without fumbling for glasses. The overall quality of my near and far vision can be exceedingly good but are very dependent on conditions. I can read tiny print but only if the lighting and contrast are just right, otherwise (like looking at a regular menu in a slightly dim restaurant) I have to pull out some 1.5 readers. There can be a irritating “ghosting” effect on computer print (also relieved with readers). My distant vision is excellent in daylight, but the glare at night makes driving quite unpleasant.
I would say if you never want to be seen wearing glasses or were afraid you might be shipwrecked on a deserted island (or end up like Henry Bemis) then go for the multifocals. Otherwise, monofocals may have the edge.
Repo! The Genetic Opera Trailer HD
Eventually if people live long enough you will develop cataracts. There is no “cure” and even most animals who live long lifespans like dogs or cats can have them. Lens cells deteriorate in spots and block out normal vision.
I had the surgery and my wife just had the surgery.
I wore glasses for nearly 66 years.
We chose the multifocal lens as they covered more options (and hence are the most expensive ones.) I still use readers for most of my reading but can read okay even without them. They just make the print a bit bigger and easier to read.
Even if you had the Lasik surgery those original lenses will develop cataracts.
Skip the surgery. Assuming you have a recent eye scan, buy this:
https://store.naturaleyecare.com/canc-glutathione-package-1.html
use it daily for 6 months, go back for another eye scan. It might surprise you.
That said, your diet is likely pretty bad. You should get yourself wise to nootropics, since your money-maker is your brain, and you’re likely not treating it that way, which I find to be bizarre.
Finally, your eye isn’t an erector set. You’re not playing with legos. Your eyes are dynamic and complex. You’re apparently planning on having them irreparably damaged, and assuming it’ll all hold together for presumably the next 25 years.
Really, Steve?
Really?
Try the eye drops, learn how to improve your mediocre diet.
If you’re doing everything right, and your eyes continue to fill with cataracts, THEN consider hiring some doofus to pulverize you lens out of its socket.
Don’t go to outside help until you have your diet and nutrition shit together first. You still have some time.
https://www.joblo.com/movie-posters/2010/repo-men/
Your natural lenses, when you are young, are stretchy like rubber and your eyeballs have the ability to change their focal length by stretching or relaxing them (a really amazing piece of natural engineering). However, as you grow older your lenses gradually lose their stretching ability and become fixed at one focal length (usually at a focal length suitable for distance so you lose your close focus and need reading glasses when you get older, even if you always had good vision). This is called presbyopia.
Until recently, the replacement lenses were also fixed focus so you'd still need reading glasses (but since the replacement lenses are brand new and clear, suddenly everything is much clearer and brighter). Recently, multifocal lenses have become available. Rather than having one focal length like a magnifying glass, these lenses are made so that they can focus both near and far. This allows you to have some focus ranging from near to far but it is not 100% perfect.
Some people with presbyopia (but whose lenses have not become clouded with cataracts yet) are nevertheless opting to replace their lenses with the mutifocal type so that they can (hopefully) get rid of their reading glasses. I would not be in favor of doing that (or any unnecessary surgery) just to get rid of reading glasses but cataract surgery is different - there is no treatment for cataracts other than surgery and you are going to need new lenses in any case. The only question is which type.
Personally, I would go with the multifocal type because it's really nice not to have to depend on glasses. (Note though that Medicare only covers the cheap monofocal type). If you really, really don't like them you could have them removed later and replaced with monofocals (or some improved multifocal because more are coming on the market all the time) but most people are happy with them. There are several different brands on the market so you have to decide which one you prefer.Replies: @Visionary, @Art Deco, @Anthony Aaron, @TG
The artificial lenses are an innovation of the last 40 years. People had cataract surgery before that. I think Charles de Gaulle got by with spectacles after his surgery.
Yes, back in the day, people who had had their cataracts removed wore REALLY THICK eyeglasses in order to focus an image on their retinas.
https://i.stack.imgur.com/mMqSP.jpg
https://s3.amazonaws.com/icptmsdata/w/e/e/g/weegee_11885_1993_452368_displaysize.jpg
When they look those glasses off, they were effectively blind. Regular eyeglasses just supplement your natural lenses to move the focal point forward or back a tiny bit so they are not that thick unless you have a very serious vision problem but cataract lenses had to bring the image into focus all by themselves so they were like coke bottle bottoms.Replies: @Johann Ricke
I’ve got the multifocal. Overall – great. I rarely put on a pair of reading glasses; only for very small print. Weeks at a time without using any glasses at all. I do a lot of reading, including magazines and newspapers and books.
However, I can’t read really small print; and, when I play golf, I lose sight of my ball after about 170 yards. I see it that far, then lose it. My doc did advise that I would not see very small print, or have good acuity at far distances.
I haven’t had any night glare problems.
Hope this is helpful.
This is a repeat comment; original seems to have gotten lost in moderation.
Your natural lenses, when you are young, are stretchy like rubber and your eyeballs have the ability to change their focal length by stretching or relaxing them (a really amazing piece of natural engineering). However, as you grow older your lenses gradually lose their stretching ability and become fixed at one focal length (usually at a focal length suitable for distance so you lose your close focus and need reading glasses when you get older, even if you always had good vision). This is called presbyopia.
Until recently, the replacement lenses were also fixed focus so you'd still need reading glasses (but since the replacement lenses are brand new and clear, suddenly everything is much clearer and brighter). Recently, multifocal lenses have become available. Rather than having one focal length like a magnifying glass, these lenses are made so that they can focus both near and far. This allows you to have some focus ranging from near to far but it is not 100% perfect.
Some people with presbyopia (but whose lenses have not become clouded with cataracts yet) are nevertheless opting to replace their lenses with the mutifocal type so that they can (hopefully) get rid of their reading glasses. I would not be in favor of doing that (or any unnecessary surgery) just to get rid of reading glasses but cataract surgery is different - there is no treatment for cataracts other than surgery and you are going to need new lenses in any case. The only question is which type.
Personally, I would go with the multifocal type because it's really nice not to have to depend on glasses. (Note though that Medicare only covers the cheap monofocal type). If you really, really don't like them you could have them removed later and replaced with monofocals (or some improved multifocal because more are coming on the market all the time) but most people are happy with them. There are several different brands on the market so you have to decide which one you prefer.Replies: @Visionary, @Art Deco, @Anthony Aaron, @TG
In India, where cataracts seem commonplace, most folks who have their cataracts removed do not get an implanted lens — too expensive — instead they get glasses … been going on that way for many decades.
Also … it is possible to have one eye with a distance lens implanted, the other with a near lens implanted.
‘You spend the vast majority of your time reading or typing, don’t you? I would get lenses adjusted for close vision and put glasses on for your midnight rampages on the road.’
Or just get a bigger car.
https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/1f2d5230c1704d4f704b41c3beb4d9844c9adfea/0_448_6720_4032/master/6720.jpg?width=445&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=9ca30a93e21816205ed0a1d9a51f0cb6
https://rt-homepage.roadtrippers.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/bombay-beach-drive-in-theater-art-1080x691.jpg
http://greetingsfromsaltonsea.com/images/trailerLG.jpg
https://www.theawkwardtourist.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/20200617_160304-scaled.jpg
Steve —
I had my cataracts removed recently (right eye, April 8th, left eye, April 14th) … done with scalpel, not laser.
The right eye operation (fully awake, but ‘anesthetized’) took 8 minutes; the left eye (fell asleep from the anesthesia) took 7 minutes.
I had the choice: distance vision lens implanted; near vision lens implanted; distance vision lens implanted in one eye, near vision lens implanted in the other eye.
I’ve got macular degeneration plus macular pucker, so I opted for distance vision lens in both eyes … I use Costco reading glasses for computer and reading.
The choice seems to have worked well for me … this is the first time in 62 years that I have distance vision without glasses … but I’ve also noticed that everything outdoors seems so very BRIGHT … I use the sunglasses they provided almost all the time I’m out, especially when driving.
Best of luck to you …
Not having reading glasses handy when you want to read something is an inconvenience, but not having distance glasses handy when you need to drive or do outdoor activities could be a far larger problem.
I suspected I had cataracts when I was no longer able to read street signs at a reasonable distance--everything was a little grainy. Only after the surgery did I discover that I had also been missing about 15 - 20% of the available light. I had been noticing that it seemed to get dark earlier than I thought it should--this was purely a result of my cataracts.Replies: @Joseph Farnsworth
My mother went with multi-focal and loved them. But she didn’t like to drive at night anyway. Other than that they were perfect.
I may well go with single focal length, perhaps for mid range. Use special glasses to drive. And graft on extra-long arms to read. This has the added benefit of allowing one to scrub floors or do tile work without getting on one’s knees.
The kind that let you see the difference between get and guet.
He's probably just looking forward to celebrating restored vision with a toast.
https://enofylzwineblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/019.jpg
I had forgotten about the bad old days. Recovery also involved extended hospital stays and strictly enforced bed rest using sand bags on each side of the head to prevent the patient from moving for weeks. Now you just walk out of the office – they give you a pair of dark glasses because your eyes are not accustomed to getting much light. Surely you were not suggesting that Steve go without implanted lenses?
Yes, back in the day, people who had had their cataracts removed wore REALLY THICK eyeglasses in order to focus an image on their retinas.
When they look those glasses off, they were effectively blind. Regular eyeglasses just supplement your natural lenses to move the focal point forward or back a tiny bit so they are not that thick unless you have a very serious vision problem but cataract lenses had to bring the image into focus all by themselves so they were like coke bottle bottoms.
There’s also the choice between myopia-correcting and presbyopia-correcting monofocals.
Which Kind of Cataract Eye Surgery Should I Guet?
Multifocal: wouldn’t need classes at all
Whatever you guet, guet it quickly. The classes do nothing.
My mother, who is eight years older than you, got monofocal lenses last year and is quite happy with it. Is it such an inconvenience to still need
classesglasses for reading due to old sight? Honest question… being rendered nearsighted and blinded by night lights seems quite worse (if that’s the tradeoff).I was going to say monofocal, and then I thought it would be better to not comment, so it’s gratifying to come back later and see an overwhelming for monofocal. I do not see the advantage of multifocal unless you have some terror of glasses.
The kind that let you see the difference between get and guet.
He’s probably just looking forward to celebrating restored vision with a toast.
Some people swear by Kliban surgery
Your natural lenses, when you are young, are stretchy like rubber and your eyeballs have the ability to change their focal length by stretching or relaxing them (a really amazing piece of natural engineering). However, as you grow older your lenses gradually lose their stretching ability and become fixed at one focal length (usually at a focal length suitable for distance so you lose your close focus and need reading glasses when you get older, even if you always had good vision). This is called presbyopia.
Until recently, the replacement lenses were also fixed focus so you'd still need reading glasses (but since the replacement lenses are brand new and clear, suddenly everything is much clearer and brighter). Recently, multifocal lenses have become available. Rather than having one focal length like a magnifying glass, these lenses are made so that they can focus both near and far. This allows you to have some focus ranging from near to far but it is not 100% perfect.
Some people with presbyopia (but whose lenses have not become clouded with cataracts yet) are nevertheless opting to replace their lenses with the mutifocal type so that they can (hopefully) get rid of their reading glasses. I would not be in favor of doing that (or any unnecessary surgery) just to get rid of reading glasses but cataract surgery is different - there is no treatment for cataracts other than surgery and you are going to need new lenses in any case. The only question is which type.
Personally, I would go with the multifocal type because it's really nice not to have to depend on glasses. (Note though that Medicare only covers the cheap monofocal type). If you really, really don't like them you could have them removed later and replaced with monofocals (or some improved multifocal because more are coming on the market all the time) but most people are happy with them. There are several different brands on the market so you have to decide which one you prefer.Replies: @Visionary, @Art Deco, @Anthony Aaron, @TG
Note that in the old days, before implantable intraocular lenses, if they took your lens out in a cataract surgery, you CAN fix this with glasses, but to compensate for the loss of focusing power of the lens you would need spectacles with really powerful (REALLY POWERFUL) magnifying power (like “Mister Magoo”) – lenses that make your eyes look like goldfish swimming in a fishbowl.
Although without a natural lens you could see ultraviolet light directly. Not actually a good thing, adds glare and is bad for the health of the eye, so all implantable lenses today absorb UV like your natural lens.
In 2021 this is of historical interest only (at least in the first world) and has zero relevance to Steve's question. No eye surgeon in America in 2021 would even consider letting you leave the operating table without an implanted lens.Replies: @James J O'Meara
Agree. Super-nearsighted since childhood, got the first cataract done and the doc kept it -1.50 nearsighted. So now I have mixed vision and I alternate between no glasses (blurry in the non-operated eye), glasses (blurry in the operated eye), or a single contact lens on the non-operated eye. The brain can handle all of these. Interestingly, what the brain can’t handle is corrective glasses on one eye and nothing/plain glass on the other. I suspect you’d benefit from having slightly different levels of correction if you get both done, presumably a few months apart.
I'm going to stay nearsighted. There is very little worth seeing beyond words on a page. Humans are fat, hideous, or worse. Architecture in the U.S.A. is an unsightly disgrace. And so on. The world has become like a "Twilight Zone" horror episode.
If this were still the '80s and the U.S. was still teeming with beautiful blonde women, it'd be a different story. Sadly, we no longer have that world.
I started wearing glasses in the 3rd grade too. My father had my eyes examined after I kept asking him the score of a football game he took me too. He told me to read the scoreboard, and I replied, "What scoreboard?"
My vision improved from -3.50 correction needed in the early 80's to -1.50 now. I'm sure yours did something along the same lines.Replies: @ScarletNumber, @Johnny789
Same here, except for hockey. He noticed me squinting so he asked me to read one of the advertisements on the boards. I couldn’t do it if my life depended it, which if you knew my father it might as well have, as he was pissed at what he felt was the waste of money.
They are practically free. You can leave them everywhere so you always have a pair.
One pair in a kit bag (chest carrier) that goes with me everywhere. Handy for reading use by tags in the supermarket.
A reserve pair in a drawer.
And there are a couple of pairs in a travel trailer that I live in for the winter.When I forget that I have the readers on (used to wearing glasses for sixty years) and I walk away from the desk, I am reminded of my former nearsightedness, as everything becomes fuzzy again. I laugh as I remove the readers.
Gradually, I’ve grown to hate this kind of bullshit.
Like Wokeism, it’s a way for people to pretend to be superior (“Oh, unlike you materialist sheep, I perceive the terrible cost of these fripperies.”) while these Ignatius Reilly conservatives .never walk the walk. The Woke do it by calling badwhites racists, while living in all white communities, sending kids to private schools, etc.
Richard Weaver, considered a saint or even a God by these types, thought that shoes corrupted the purity of the Southern soul. At least, that’s what he wrote from his air-conditioned office at the University of Chicago, with his feet, shod of course, on the desk.
The late Brother R G Stair, who died at 87 last April, ran the Overcomer farm commune down in SC. While awaiting the Apocalypse (“Soon!”) his followers eschewed jobs, money, houses, cars (thus, no debt, no need for job or money), Social Security (he opted out) and especially medicine. All were tools of the Devil, designed to rope you into the NWO and take the mark of the Beast. He was crazy, and a sexual predator, but by God he was no hypocrite!
Him I respect.
Just to spell it out for the imbeciles: where I respond to Sailer I'm responding to an image of Sailer as relayed by his blog hosted on a Billionaire Jew's website. I'm not responding to the in-the flesh real-life Steve Sailer. I'm responding to, and dialoguing with, the idea of himself as he posits on this blog and I am, as much as him, a composite of the false ideas you have of me.
I don't often respond to comments as 1) there's a kind of censorship policy with regard my posts which ruins my vibe alot and 2) I like to let people roam free on the internet without becoming a drag on the discourse but I need to put your narrative down.
C'mon MAN! Do you think Pat Hannagan is the very essence of who I am?
This is a blog. Out there is real life.
Never the twixt and twain should be confused, and in the disconnect we can have fun and argue.
It's clearly a distinction that you're unable to fathom, on blogs and in real life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdAcS4c0-QkReplies: @vhrm
Both of my eyes developed cataracts early, when I was thirty or so. My mother had earlier had the same condition and asked for an unusual solution — her left eye set at infinity, for driving, and the right (dominant) one close-up, for reading. Since I do “analog” (real-life) work, I had both of mine set for extra close-up and have had prescription glasses made, including sunglasses. These solutions have worked well for us. However, since then the multifocals’ design may have improved. One does a lot of driving in LA, and of course some people as they age work on larger screens farther away. But this is one area (unlike, say, opinions) in which many people do differ, and I only mention what we’ve come up with because there’s also always the possibility of individuals designing their own kluges — proven to work in this admittedly small n out of millions.
Hey Steve,
Sorry to hear you’re developing cataracts. Bummer. Fortunately your cataracts are operable. But, Like Jenner Ickham Errican above mentioned, “first make sure you really need the surgery. Sometimes worse vision can be an unfortunate outcome.” If you opt for surgery find the best surgeon you can.
Have you considered n-acetylcarnosine eye drops? While not everyone agrees on it’s effectiveness, topical n-acetylcarnosine shows potential for the treatment and prevention of cataracts.
I have an inoperable posterior subcapsular cataract in my left eye. I learned about this a few years back when I began experiencing eye pain and watering in my left eye. My eye doctor told me it was degenerative and that there was nothing that could be done. He explicitly warned me to stay away from anyone who was brave enough and/or willing to attempt surgery on my eye as I would most likely end up blind in that eye and possibly in more pain than I was already in. He is a competent and honest guy and I trust his opinion.
With nowhere else to turn I did some reading and learned about people who have cured their nuclear sclerotic cataracts with n-acetylcarnosine eye drops. I had nothing to lose, except my already deteriorating eyesight in my left eye, so I gave them a try. Fortunately they have helped me. My eye pain and watering went away quickly and have not returned. Though I have not healed my cataract like I had optimistically hoped, the cataract has not degenerated any further and is actually a little clearer than it once was. I am a bit fuzzy in my left eye (imagine looking through lightly frosted window glass, reading for example is out of the question) but I do see out of it. I feel it is better to have an eye with fuzzy vision than no vision at all.
I’ve also had luck with herbal eyewash with cayenne pepper and isotine eye drops.
There are also oral supplements and vitamins you could try. (I have not tried any of these and perhaps I should?) Just letting you know what has worked for me.
Maybe it’s worth trying some eye drops before you take the surgery route?
Maybe you’ll have good luck with them?
Whatever you try, I hope it is a resounding success.
Good luck to you, and your vision, kind sir.
☮
Ever since Dunkin’ Donuts rebranded itself as Dunkin’, they’ve gone down the shitter.
“They even have a parking lot.”
Sorry Alden, but this made me laugh.
I could never live in a city.
☮
Thank you (I can’t use the “Thanks” button).
Literally who on twitter is claiming that the Rooftop Korean who is smiling in a red shirt in that photo (“It’s all so invigorating”) has died. I am unable to get to good information because they’re all named Park. Can Los Angelinos confirm this and then observe that today it is likely to rain? I see no reason to believe this thus far but the guy was clearly middle-aged in 1992 so it seems possible.
I was near sighted almost my entire life. Wearing glasses at that time carried a stigma of weakness. First thing an aggressor would do is slap my glasses off my face.
I had mono vision with contacts for almost 20 years before becoming eligible for surgery. Depth perception was sub optimal.
I considered continuing mono vision, but decided I wanted two good eyes (distance wise) for the first time in my life.
I went with stereo vision, both eyes far sighted. Wear readers for close up work.
With stereo vision:
Noticeably improved depth perception.
I have noticed a difference while riding my dual sport off pavement, that my reading the terrain ahead has noticeably improved my riding ability from the season before surgery to the season afterwards with nothing else changing.
My target shooting has also improved since surgery. I can shoot either hand/eye combo fairly well, with a nod to the left eye/left hand being more accurate.
The readers are a small burden to bear in respect to the gains.
Could your cataracts be an indication from God that you need to re-examine your just-so stories?
Nah. But thanks for the self-reveal!
That is what I do, multiple pairs in multiple places.
One pair on the desk.
One pair in a kit bag (chest carrier) that goes with me everywhere. Handy for reading use by tags in the supermarket.
A reserve pair in a drawer.
And there are a couple of pairs in a travel trailer that I live in for the winter.
When I forget that I have the readers on (used to wearing glasses for sixty years) and I walk away from the desk, I am reminded of my former nearsightedness, as everything becomes fuzzy again. I laugh as I remove the readers.
10 percent hate them
80 percent don't find they help
100 percent paid full premium priceI have a non-trivial amount patients who come in wanting these multifocal lenses removed after placement (which requires my involvement as a retina guy and is a much more involved surgery than the initial cataract surgery). In other words, they may work for you, but if they don't, then you're in for a world of annoyance. Tread carefully. If anything, use trial frames/multifocal or bifocal contacts prior to the surgery to see if you enjoy the situation of "static multifocality depending on where you look" or not.That being said, I cannot stress enough the idea that if you are used to glasses for reading, then that's what you should emulate post surgery. It's really no big deal for a presbyopic patient who is used to "not using" glasses at distance. However, if you do select a monofocal lens, make sure to emulate whatever situation that you "don't use glasses for" at present. If it's "I use glasses for everything", then consider targeting distance for the monofocal lens, so you're in a state where you're mainly using glasses for reading, as that tends to be more natural.As an aside, since you tend to be interested in these things, a small pedantic point: presbyopia means you cannot accomodate (i.e. your RANGE of vision no longer includes a swath of focal points, traditionally including that which corresponds to the small print). It does not necessarily mean far-sighted, which goes by the term "Hyperopia". "Myopia/Hyperopia/Emmetropia" specifically refer to the basic STATIC INITIAL state of one's baseline ability to see without glasses - thus someone can be "Hyperopic and presbyopic" (i.e. they're far-sighted at baseline, but also have lost the ability to have a range of vision at any other focal point) or "Emmetropic and presbyopic" (i.e. they're perfect at distance but again, have lost the ability to have a range of vision, so they need help seeing at any other focal point), etc.Replies: @Paperback Writer, @Bill Jones
Thanks SO much for this input.
I personally dislike wearing reading glasses. But that’s just a tic — I’d certainly get beyond this in light of everything you’ve said.
It almost sounds to me as if you’re saying that we’re basically doing a large-scale beta test on cataract patients and so far, the results favor monofocal.
Thanks again.
The artificial lenses are an innovation of the last 40 years.
This doc is the father of IOL’s, he began implanting them in 1950, or 71 years ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Ridley_(ophthalmologist)
Although in the US, IOL’s did not become common until around 1981.
One thing: if you opt for the monofocals, amass a huge cache of reading glasses in case TSHTF.
You wouldn’t want to end up like poor Henry Bemis:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Enough_at_Last
Very true, Mateen. But the Republicans would only let it end because, of course, minorities hardest hit. (That, and it’s also bad for [some] businesses, and also it’s time to fully reopen the US of A’s legs to immigrants)
Here is a fun fact, Jeanne Calment, the longest-lived Human ever according to the Guiness Book of World Records, who lived to be almost 123 years, had incipient cataracts at the age of 20, which is extremely rare. She also had mushroom poisoning in her early thirties that almost killed her from kidney failure. The French have a custom that goes back to the times of the Gauls, of going into the oak forests to pick mushrooms. Anyone who’s ever read the “Asterix” comic books knows this. But Ms.Calment confused the classic champignons for a highly poisonous species, and almost died for it. She did survive, just like she survived measles when she was already a septuagenarian. At 98, she fell and snapped her tibia. But in less than 6 months her tibia healed with no need for surgery and she was walking with a spring to her walk again. She smoked cigarettes for 80 years like most French people, but she didn’t indulge, smoking only 1 cigarette first thing in the morning and one after lunch. Her diet was mostly vegetarian, and she put olive oil into every food, which is common in southern France like it is in the Mediterranean. She was a sports fanatic and played squash into her 80’s and rode her bicycle daily until her 100th birthday, when she quit due to back pain. She outlived all of her grandchildren. She met Vincent Van Gogh, and described him as “rough, rude and smells of alcohol.”. She further described him as “a despicable man, a cad, an enjoyer of liquor and prostitutes.”
Steve, I can’t give you advice but I am genuinely sorry you have to undergo this. I hope everything turns out well for you.
I’ve been nearsighted since my teens and am stating down cataract surgery as well.
I’m going to stay nearsighted. There is very little worth seeing beyond words on a page. Humans are fat, hideous, or worse. Architecture in the U.S.A. is an unsightly disgrace. And so on. The world has become like a “Twilight Zone” horror episode.
If this were still the ’80s and the U.S. was still teeming with beautiful blonde women, it’d be a different story. Sadly, we no longer have that world.
I did the multi-focal lenses, combined with laser corneal sculpting. That was almost three years ago. I went from 20/280 to 20/15. I can’t out drive my vision on the golf course; of course, a good drive for me is 240 yards.
Bottom line: you don’t have to give up distance vision. But there is a downside; Medicare pays for mono-focal, my procedures cost me $3,800 per eye, over what Medicare pays.
Yes, back in the day, people who had had their cataracts removed wore REALLY THICK eyeglasses in order to focus an image on their retinas.
https://i.stack.imgur.com/mMqSP.jpg
https://s3.amazonaws.com/icptmsdata/w/e/e/g/weegee_11885_1993_452368_displaysize.jpg
When they look those glasses off, they were effectively blind. Regular eyeglasses just supplement your natural lenses to move the focal point forward or back a tiny bit so they are not that thick unless you have a very serious vision problem but cataract lenses had to bring the image into focus all by themselves so they were like coke bottle bottoms.Replies: @Johann Ricke
I am beginning to wonder whether Alec Guinness’s coke bottle glasses in Smiley’s People had to do with his vision problems as much as it had to do with the character in the eponymous novel.
Hope nothing like this happens to Steve.
So, I guess cataracts led to the Holocaust. Life is funny.
When I got LASIK done for nearsightedness 10+ years ago, I tried monovision – dominant eye corrected for distance, other eye undercorrected to preserve reading vision. Absolutely hated it, and after six months, went back and got the non-dominant eye corrected for distance, and breathed a huge sigh of relief. Yeah, I’ve worn reading glasses for the last four years, but need no glasses for computer work, which is 80% of my job. Sharp distance vision is just too important for me to compromise.
So I recommend you figure out (a) what is the most important vision task you do, and (b) what are the compromises if you optimize for that task. Then see if the compromises are acceptable; if so, you’re done, if not, rinse and repeat. Then get your ophthalmologist to figure out how you can preview (pun intended) that option for a long enough time to really see (yeah, I know) if you like it.
And agree with others the multifocal lenses sound not fully baked yet.
Great thread; I’ll probably be asking these same questions in another 5-7 years.
Wow, so many comments here about a common eye condition associated with age.
Let’s hope iSteve doesn’t have prostate problems for a few years. Who wants to think about that, much less read the horrific details?
Ladies, you get the last laugh!
OT former studio head Barry Diller says the movie business is over
https://www.npr.org/2021/07/08/1014095135/barry-diller-headed-2-hollywood-studios-he-now-says-the-movie-business-is-dead
OT Pattern?
https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/1413625824620732418
How so ? Can you elaborate ? I thought the coffee used to be as good as MacDonalds ( which is superior to SBUX …)
OT
Looks like one of the Americans involved in the assassination of the Haitian president perpetrated a Hate Hoax in 2020:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9774395/American-mercenary-arrested-assassination-filed-restraining-order-against-neighbors.html
Could you please post more info on what you did/learned regarding the meniscus? Thanks.
Disclaimer: I had a detached retina, and the fix for that causes cataracts, hence new lens.Replies: @Marty
I was at the retina specialist last week in a heavily blue county – here’s what happened:
A middle-class looking white couple in their ‘60’s comes in. The husband says to the receptionist, a latina, “you should get a TV in here so we can watch Fox News.” She replies, “we can’t afford it.” I go in for the prelim, and when I come out there’s a second white couple of the same age. He’s about 250 and looks like Ben Davidson, and she’s tall and stringy, the type you often see on the back of a Harley. I guess the two couples had been talking, lady #2 says Fox is totally compromised, and couple #1 should instead watch something called “One America.” I was sitting there in fear of getting cancelled by association.
Go ahead and "troll" me now, Scarlet. I know you LUV LUV LUV your TV!Replies: @Simon Tugmutton
Distance vision with the multifocal lenses is better than I had before surgery with either glasses or contacts. For computer work or in bright light I now use reading glasses. But in low light (like a restaurant or my living room) I can read without reading glasses.
It is very convenient to not have to carry reading glasses. I enjoy being in a restaurant with friends and they all whip out their reading glasses to read the menu, but I have no problem because of the multifocal lenses.
There is some night glare, but you will quickly adjust to it.
There are some times when the multifocal lenses are a compromise. But all things considered, the multifocal lenses are vastly better than glasses or contact lenses were. I wore glasses for over 40 years with very high myopia (-8.5).
I am an evangelist for multifocal lenses and will be glad to talk with you if you want to reach out.Replies: @Ralph L
I wore glasses for over 40 years with very high myopia (-8.5).
Piker.
Last time I got a prescription, I made the mistake of pushing my face firmly against the equipment and ended up with -11.5, which aren’t quite strong enough past 6 feet, particularly in low light, unless I smash my glasses against my face.
My ex-boss kept reading glasses in several locations so he wouldn’t have to carry a pair with him.
My mother was around a 3 diopters nearsighted and had the monofocal lenses put in after cataract surgery. Afterwards, she sees distance fine, but she can easily read print so small that I find it amazing. She doesn’t need any sort of reading glasses at all. If your correction isn’t large, you may not need reading glasses if you have monofocals put in. But if your eyes are more nearsighted than my mother’s, you are likely to need reading glasses.
Although without a natural lens you could see ultraviolet light directly. Not actually a good thing, adds glare and is bad for the health of the eye, so all implantable lenses today absorb UV like your natural lens.Replies: @Jack D
You’re right of course but no one in the West has done this for 30 plus years so I had completely forgotten that it was ever even done this way. When was the last time you saw a guy with those glasses? They’re all dead now.
In 2021 this is of historical interest only (at least in the first world) and has zero relevance to Steve’s question. No eye surgeon in America in 2021 would even consider letting you leave the operating table without an implanted lens.
https://i.huffpost.com/gen/1937410/images/o-BUBBLES-KITTY-facebook.jpg
Looks like one of the Americans involved in the assassination of the Haitian president perpetrated a Hate Hoax in 2020:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9774395/American-mercenary-arrested-assassination-filed-restraining-order-against-neighbors.htmlReplies: @Steve Sailer
Thanks.
“Glasses won’t compensate for glare.”
I don’t usually wear glasses for driving but I have found them to reduce glare while driving at night.
Whatever I' m looking at is in focus; the brain ignores whichever eye is blurry. It sounds odd, but I was pre-adapted for it because as a child I was quite nearsighted in one eye and extremely so in the other. My glasses (from when I started school) corrected the former to normal for distance and the latter to merely "quite" nearsighted. Later, when I wore contact lenses, they were interchangeable even though my eyes were quite different. And after cataract surgery, the equivalent lenses are inside my eyes and I don't need glasses, even for driving.
Some ophthalmologists will refuse to do this even when you are certain that's what you want.Replies: @vhrm
Some friends with just garden variety myopia got lasik correction in a monovision set-up (one close one far) instead of going to reading glasses / bi-focals in middle age after wearing glasses / contacts their whole lives to that point.
They both tried it out first with contacts and adjusted well and are quite happy with the decision several years down the road.
Before they did it, i’d never even heard of this whole concept, but it seems that it works (or can work) fine even for those whose both eyes were corrected to 20/20 for most of their lives. It’s definitely something i’m keeping in mind for when my time comes.
Chuck Yeager had 20-10 vision and could shoot a deer at 600 yards.
“… And now I have cataracts slowly developing. ..”
Everybody has cataracts slowly developing. This isn’t by itself a reason to do anything (except maybe wear sunglasses more).
Whatever causes cataracts can’t cause them to reoccur after surgery because they completely remove your natural lenses and the new ones are made of plastic.
Hey, Sailer.
I e-mailed a buddy of mine from Los Angeles. My buddy actually knows a young board-certified opthalmologist physician who’s pretty good. The opthalmologist owns practices in Covina and El Monte. Here’s the website for the ophthalmology practice.
https://www.omnieyecare.com/
The clinic offers specialized treatment for cataracts, glaucoma, macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, and dry eye.
Here’s a relevant graphic for you. Click on it to enlarge. Multi-focal might be a good choice, but I’d consult with a physician first.
Here are the insurances that they accept.
Aetna
Anthem Blue Cross
Blue Shield
Blue Shield Promise
Cigna
Easy Choice
HealthNet
LA Care
Medi-Cal
Medicare
Molina Healthcare
PacifiCare
SCAN
Secure Horizons
TriCare
United Healthcare
Central Health
Alignment
Intervalley
Most PPO’s and EPO’s
The office is open Monday through Friday from 9:00 AM until 5:00 PM. Weekends are available by appointment only.
You can schedule an appointment here.
https://www.omnieyecare.com/schedule
This is the phone number: 626-332-1888.
Here’s some more relevant information.
If you need more information, I could e-mail my buddy again.
My advice is to consult multiple physicians before making a decision. Try the physician above – and then try a few more.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNVlxfDrD7Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtrW079VUAo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYAN-_AxqWY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27lug4Ots1I
You can watch the above videos and then generate some good questions for the doctors you visit.
Unfortunately, I can't say that I'm an expert on this topic. I'd recommend that when you consult with different doctors on the surgery, also research them online to make sure they weren't sued for malpractice. You can even look at online reviews left by previous patients. That can help you with selecting a physician.
I have worn ordinary glasses for 55 years. But now my vision is getting worse in ways that glasses can no longer correct.
DO NOT get the multi focal implants! I have been a practicing optometrist for almost 30 years and have provided post operative care for thousands of my patients after cataract surgery. By far, in my experience,the most frustrated patients after cataract surgery have been the ones who were myopic prior to surgery and opted for multi focal implants. They never achieve the crisp near acuity that they are accustomed to when they would remove their glasses. And no spectacle or contact lens Rx can provide that afterwards.
I would recommend mono focal implants set for distance or set at your normal working distance for near tasks ( as Mr. Canaday suggested above).
I find that the multi focal implants work best for people who were moderately farsighted before surgery and didn’t need glasses until later in life.
Good luck with your surgery.Replies: @vhrm
TLDR:
1) halos around lights at night and in the dark kinda suck. Would not recommend a solution that will include them.
2) not cataracts but vision related: if you wear normal glasses with polycarbonate or high index lenses and have issues with halos or things look/feel weird whenever you move your eyes even during the day, try old school CR-39 plastic lenses instead. because
http://www.optmagazine.com/2016/02/29/abbe-number/
3) neither optometrists nor glasses techs told me this or (afaict) know about it even once i mentioned it. what’s the deal?
——–
This message is partly answer to steve, partly a public service message to glasses wearers who might read it and partly trying to get the good doctor to answer for my issues with his co-professionals with whom he is in no way affiliated. 🙂
My only first hand statement of experience is that i rather disliked night time halos around lights (which, note includes every LED, lit number display, exit sign, or store sign letter) when i saw them due to some incompatible glasses. As such i would not recommend an option that has that as a side-effect.
It wasn’t just a driving issue; it was distracting basically whenever i was in a dark or somewhat dark environment. Even looking at the moon, iirc.
The story: I’m just a basic myopic guy (around -3.5D correction nowadays). Been wearing glasses for some decades, but on three occasions over the past 15 years i tried polycarbonate lenses or high index lenses ’cause “why not?” and all three times i got rid of them within a few weeks because “they seemed off” and also had halos around lights in the dark. All the times I went back to lame old CR-39 plastic and things were fine.
None of the optometrists or glasses techs i talked to had anything to say about why i’d have that reaction. The first attempt they made the glasses again (in case they were somehow “wrong” even though they measured correct) and eventually just said “yeah, some people don’t adjust well them”.
Eventually i realized that what i was noticing during the day was “off-axis aberration” of some type. So with my eyes straight forward the stuff in the middle of my field of view was clear but if looking through the side / top / bottom of the lens, even a little, things started getting blurry. Equivalently look at a fixed point and move your head around slightly and notice how the thing gets in and out of focus and, if at night, the halos change as you’re looking through different parts of the lens. This happens with normal plastic lenses too afaict, but a lot less.
Anyway, blah blah … eventually i found on the web the concept of Abbe number which is a quantification of an optical property of material called “dispersion” that basically causes that smaller sweet spot (and also chromatic aberration which also adds weirdness and causes halos). For normal plastic lenses this is as good as good glass, but for polycarbonate and other high index materials it’s considerably worse.
There is now some material on the web about it (and there is some stuff going back to 2010 ) but it’s one of those things that’s much easier to find once you know key words like “chromatic aberration”, “off-axis aberration” and “Abbe number” whereas “why are my new glasses weird?” and things like that were not so helpful.
Anyhow, Dr. Anon, why isn’t this more widely known / said? The O.Ds in question all seemed “alright” alright as far as i could tell though definitely with mainstream practices. I think 3 of them were running their offices in Costcos around the area, but the last one has a private practice downtown that i picked because he’s one of the few in the area who has (or at least advertises) the Zeiss wavefront measurement tech and lenses (which it turns out i wouldn’t benefit from since i don’t have too much “higher order” stuff going on. and i appreciate he didn’t try to sell them to me anyway).
Anthem Blue Cross
Blue Shield
Blue Shield Promise
Cigna
Easy Choice
HealthNet
LA Care
Medi-Cal
Medicare
Molina Healthcare
PacifiCare
SCAN
Secure Horizons
TriCare
United Healthcare
Central Health
Alignment
Intervalley
Most PPO’s and EPO’sThe office is open Monday through Friday from 9:00 AM until 5:00 PM. Weekends are available by appointment only.You can schedule an appointment here.https://www.omnieyecare.com/scheduleThis is the phone number: 626-332-1888.Here's some more relevant information.If you need more information, I could e-mail my buddy again.My advice is to consult multiple physicians before making a decision. Try the physician above - and then try a few more.Replies: @JohnnyWalker123
Relevant videos.
You can watch the above videos and then generate some good questions for the doctors you visit.
Unfortunately, I can’t say that I’m an expert on this topic. I’d recommend that when you consult with different doctors on the surgery, also research them online to make sure they weren’t sued for malpractice. You can even look at online reviews left by previous patients. That can help you with selecting a physician.
Very sad story, kind of like the Old West, which has become the New West.
https://www.newsbreakapp.com/n/0asbuYOg?&share_destination_id=Nzc1OTY5NjgtMTYyNTg4NjE2NDYwNQ==&s=a7&pd=05FaW0VB&hl=en_US
We aren't at a state where we have a truly accomodative lens yet.Replies: @vhrm
What’s the word on the “kinda” accomodative one that’s on the market now in the US. ( Bausch + Lomb Crystalens, )
Is it even worth considering?
What’s your feel about how long FDA approval is going to take for the likes of this Juvene IOLs ? is it like 3 years or like 10? (they had one study with 40 eyes in mexico over a year ago and it was good and got funding to launch US studies)
(https://www.massdevice.com/lensgen-closes-10-million-in-bridge-financing/)
The flexible haptics are moved by the focus muscles of the eye. It works to varying degrees in different people. The patient needs to exercise the eye by focusing on different distances. Lots of reports out on the web as with all the other lenses.
Costs more than the fixed lens, can cost more than some multifocus, but directs all the light onto one point on the retina like a fixed, so should be good for those who drive at night.
Having cataracts means that you natural lenses have clouded up (mainly due to old age). Wearing glasses can’t fix this. Nothing (that is known) can restore clouded lenses to clarity. The only cure for cataracts is to remove the cloudy lenses entirely.
Back in the day, after doing this people would indeed use glasses to correct for their now missing lenses but they had to be really really thick glasses (and without them you were as blind as a bat). The reason you want lenses installed in your eyes is to replace your now missing natural lenses without having to wear coke bottle bottom lenses for the rest of your life. The implanted lenses usually work great. It’s great to be all natural they way people were back in the day, but back in the day a lot of people also went blind from cataracts.
Well, if you put it that way...Replies: @Jack D
I know a senior optical engineer who works on these lenses, and this person opines that 'what type of intraocular lens do doctors prescribe? In general, for people with bad insurance, the cheapest model; for people with good insurance, the most expensive one. Neither is necessarily the best optically.'
It's a shame that there isn't some kind of simulator people can use to try out different options, given that this is (effectively) a one-time irreversible decision.
Note that you will likely need at least weak glasses for distance vision anyway. Remember, when they install the lens, they can't adjust it like they can glasses "what's better, one or two?". They use optical modeling and take careful measures of the dimensions of your specific eyes, and they guess, and they have gotten pretty darn good at this, but they still could be off a little bit.
Yes, the people I know with implanted lenses complain most about glare at night.
I would go with the single focus, but that's just my opinion. My own eyesight is so poor that having to wear relatively weak reading or distance glasses seems hardly a nuisance, I'd like my overall vision as clear as possible even if I need to switch glasses near/far.Replies: @Anon
Well, OT, but this thread has been a consolation to me. I was born premature, 6 months 1 week, so the inside of my eyes are weird, I have a lazy eye, astigmatism and myopia. No wonder I’m an avid reader, and never could really follow my golf ball. But now I feel there’s many more than just me! Talk about “ the problem of many is the consolation of fools”. 😀
Is it even worth considering?
What's your feel about how long FDA approval is going to take for the likes of this Juvene IOLs ? is it like 3 years or like 10? (they had one study with 40 eyes in mexico over a year ago and it was good and got funding to launch US studies)
(https://www.massdevice.com/lensgen-closes-10-million-in-bridge-financing/)Replies: @anon
What’s the word on the “kinda” accomodative one that’s on the market now in the US. ( Bausch + Lomb Crystalens, )
The flexible haptics are moved by the focus muscles of the eye. It works to varying degrees in different people. The patient needs to exercise the eye by focusing on different distances. Lots of reports out on the web as with all the other lenses.
Costs more than the fixed lens, can cost more than some multifocus, but directs all the light onto one point on the retina like a fixed, so should be good for those who drive at night.
Only you and your HBD mates like Charles Murray labour under the misapprehenmsion that what the world needs is your excellent tuition on what exactly constitutes race.
Seriously: everyone gets it.
We all know what race is and which races really piss us off.
What *you* need to work out is why everyone *pretends* race isn't real.
https://twitter.com/RichardBSpencer/status/1406303492294074370Replies: @Anon
Have you any idea how big Steve Sailer looks by allowing your posts? You are his best propaganda.
I’m scheduled for cataract surgery in the next few weeks – having the mono lense as doc says I wasnt suited to the multi. For the people saying live with it or fix it with vitamins well, you got to be kidding.
Mine went bad fast – from good eyesight to ‘what the fuck happened’ in a few months.
Or just get a bigger car.Replies: @Reg Cæsar
Or move to a smaller town. Such as Bombay Beach.
Dunkin’s coffee is fine. We were talking about donuts, which have gone downhill. Even before the rebranding, they were making much more on coffee than they were on donuts.
Back in the day, after doing this people would indeed use glasses to correct for their now missing lenses but they had to be really really thick glasses (and without them you were as blind as a bat). The reason you want lenses installed in your eyes is to replace your now missing natural lenses without having to wear coke bottle bottom lenses for the rest of your life. The implanted lenses usually work great. It's great to be all natural they way people were back in the day, but back in the day a lot of people also went blind from cataracts.Replies: @James J O'Meara, @BB753
“It’s great to be all natural they way people were back in the day, but back in the day a lot of people also went blind from cataracts.”
Well, if you put it that way…
Sure, it would be better to keep your own lenses and joints and so on because the man-made replacements are rarely as good (we are really in the very early stages of making replacement parts and the designs are usually not perfect, as you can see from Steve's question) , but humans were not really designed to live as long as they are living now so lots of parts start to wear out. An implanted lens is not as good the natural lens you had when you were a teenager (at least for those people who had good natural vision, which lots of people don't), but it's better than those cloudy 65 year old lenses that you have now.
The FBI lied about having nothing on murdered Clinton campaign leaker Seth Rich.
https://vault.fbi.gov/seth-rich/seth-rich-part-01-of-01/view
Also apparently the bad guys are going to do a bigger cyber attack in August, and will almost certainly blame it on "white supremacists." This presupposes that whatever they focus on in their big meeting is the next torture experiment (eg, focusing on a plague before the Fauci lockdown).Replies: @James J O'Meara
Nothing? Well, I see 137 pages of cryptic Dewey Decimal codes. Care to parse that for us? Some of us have real lives to get on with.
In 2021 this is of historical interest only (at least in the first world) and has zero relevance to Steve's question. No eye surgeon in America in 2021 would even consider letting you leave the operating table without an implanted lens.Replies: @James J O'Meara
Bubble from Trailer Park Boys:
A middle-class looking white couple in their ‘60’s comes in. The husband says to the receptionist, a latina, “you should get a TV in here so we can watch Fox News.” She replies, “we can’t afford it.” I go in for the prelim, and when I come out there’s a second white couple of the same age. He’s about 250 and looks like Ben Davidson, and she’s tall and stringy, the type you often see on the back of a Harley. I guess the two couples had been talking, lady #2 says Fox is totally compromised, and couple #1 should instead watch something called “One America.” I was sitting there in fear of getting cancelled by association.Replies: @Achmed E. Newman
Interesting and quite different from my experience in the waiting room of a dentist, in which I freaked out the receptionist lady by turning off the TV. Nobody was watching, as this one older black guy in there was just reading the newspaper. Well, I had to unplug it because I couldn’t see the remote and couldn’t find the on/off switch. Maybe I should have been at the eye doctor’s instead.
Go ahead and “troll” me now, Scarlet. I know you LUV LUV LUV your TV!
https://www.tvbgone.com/
Also works well in electrical stores with 50+ TV screens. Hours of harmless fun; causes apoplexy and other satisfying symptoms in TV addicts. Haven't yet dared to turn off the widescreen in the pub when (a) the football's on and (b) 5 seconds before the crucial penalty-kick to determine the game and who gets the European Cup.
***
Steve – good luck with your eyes.Replies: @Achmed E. Newman
I was reading about that nutty conman, Guido “von” List, who started the whole “Ariosophy” pagan blood and soil thing that fed into the rise of the Nazis — sort of a Nazi Oprah, channeling the “wisdom” of dead Aryan priests etc. — who got his start after a cataract operation around 1910. He had to spend a year or so in darkness or with his eyes wrapped up or something…. that’s when he started to have his “visions”. Still, I was amazed that people would have such surgery back then.
Hope nothing like this happens to Steve.
So, I guess cataracts led to the Holocaust. Life is funny.
Steve, it sounds like you should go for the monofocal, in part to avoid the glare you mentioned.
Nighttime glare or refraction is a real nuisance, and I will get to that.
I had RK (Radial Keratotomy) performed in 1985, when it was fairly new. Like you, I had started wearing glasses in fourth grade for myopia and eventually needed a correction of -7 diopters. (That’s pretty fuzzy nearsightedness, basically blind without glasses.)
The RK immediately reduced my prescription by about two-thirds, significantly improving quality of life. (Like, I could see who I was waking up with in the morning 🙂 ) but it took fifteen years for the incisions to completely do their job and gradually give me 20/20 vision.
I’ve had practically perfect vision and no glasses now for twenty years. I can read and type this right now here on the couch easily, and I can look up and read the clock on the DVR 20 feet across the living room. And I’m your age.
However, there was nighttime glare or refractions from the incisions for many years that made headlights and streetlights look like blooming dandelions.
My astronomy hobby was severely degraded.
The glare/refractions eventually subsided, or my brain learned to filter out the noise. I’m not sure which.
Avoid glare and other such interferences if you can.
PS: There is no guarantee that your surgeon will have all the answers. I asked mine if the incisions would interfere with my vision. He said no, claiming that they would not cross into my field of view. He was wrong. He had a math degree from Princeton and a great reputation as an ophthalmologist on the inside track. All I had was an intelligent question. Still, my experience has been an equitable trade.
I thought I should share my experience, and I wish you good health and clear vision — free of glare.
Would the eye specialists here give an update on this? Has it progressed to human trials?
https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/clearing-cataracts-eye-drops
Okay, Boomer. Blogging too hard can give you a catarack-ack-ack-ack-ack-ackt.
My operation was prior to multivision. As a motorcyclist, I decided for distance, but to my happy surprise I found that I no longer needed any glasses for reading and other close work, and I could throw out all the damn prescription and drug store glasses.
Steve, you’ll be soooo pleased with clear sight. It’s a new life. I live in a clean air region, and I couldn’t understand why the sky had become like LA at its worst in the old days. Was everyone burning firewood? I had both eyes surgically corrected, two weeks apart, so I was able to blink back and forth and see the difference; I was astonished to see that the brown shirt in front of me was a beautiful magenta.
The operation was actually enjoyable – full consciousness on some super fine drugs and good conversation with the professionals. You might get them to pay you.
My natural tendency would be to get the very best of one or the other kind of vision. Since reading glasses are easy and cheap to come by, I would go for mono-focal so that my distant vision was optimal with minimal glare at night- because I still like to drive at night. If you don’t drive at night, or don’t play sports where 20/20 vision is a great benefit, then get the multi-focal.
Steve, it’s really a “what’s important to you” question.
But my guess is that if you think through it, monofocal aimed at seeing well mid to far distance makes the most sense for the rest of your life.
I’ve been very, very lucky in life–kids, wife, job, money, and health (for which i thank the good Lord every day)–including having excellent vision up through developing the typical old age presbyopia, finally having to get some reading glasses (for map reading or the fine print) in my 50s. But it just isn’t a big deal.
I think if you consider the rest of your life, what do you want to do? Enjoy your grandkids when they come–ergo driving to visit your boys’ families. Drive to visit our national parks or take a hike. Socialize with friends. Enjoy a Pacific sunset with your bride. Play a round of golf.
Add it all up and i think you want the monofocal aimed at mid/far distance–do the out and about stuff without messing with glasses. Reading glasses are dirt cheap. And it’s easier than ever with tech to simply make the print bigger.
You definitely want to be able to see it is your wife, you’re slinging over your shoulder … and not your neighbor’s. But you’ll manage fine if you have to boost the font size or slip on some reading glasses now and again.
I don't usually wear glasses for driving but I have found them to reduce glare while driving at night.Replies: @Mr. Anon
I wear glasses all the time and they don’t do squat for glare. Driving at night for me is like watching a black and white movie directed by J.J. Abrams.
How this would work with something actually in your eyeball I don't know.
At one point I had five different eyeglasses: far-near, mid-near, near-nearer (deskwork and computer), reading, and movie (constant focus like reading, but with far focus). I'd choose a couple to take with me whenever I went out. I like eyeglasses, so I bought the same design in five "colors" of tortoise shell style plastic.Replies: @Steve Sailer
I used to have 3 different sets of glasses, but that was a pain. The multifocal glasses I’ve worn for the last six years were a big improvement.
monofocal. do 1 eye, then wait til the cateracts force the issue on the other.
Yeah, I'm sure wearing a monocle like Col. Klink will help his reputation.Replies: @anon
https://s.abcnews.com/images/WNT/abc_wn_king_120617_wg.jpg
https://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/steve_sailer_youtube-1044x550.jpg
BTW, there is at least one quote-poster site that dares to feature our hero:
https://quotefancy.com/media/wallpaper/3840x2160/1579333-Steve-Sailer-Quote-Monogamy-is-a-huge-time-saver.jpgReplies: @Bert
The symbolism of that poster is brilliant: a golden land of milk and “honey” in the distance versus shallow ruts (got that?) on the road shoulder in the foreground.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wtxpzw0jvNg
Long story short... 70 year old standard-issue military boots were higher quality than the artisan stuff that sells for +$500 today.
They had thicker, higher quality leather, because back in the days before universal high-school education and anti-natalism, we had lots of hard men employed in aggressive activities like herding cattle, peeling and fleshing hides, and tanning them. Leather actually used to be cheap back in the days when we had huge numbers of hard men killing animals nonstop, and they all reproduced voraciously because no one could tell them otherwise, or they'd be eating a knuckle sandwich. But no, you can't have that anymore... Some little whiny feminist bitch got her way.
Is this going to make you mad enough to slam your computer off, get out there ans start punching people in the fucking god damn face? Boy if this won't do it, I don't think anything will. Get a sex change if you don't kill at least one farm animal today.Replies: @Alden, @Alden, @Jack D
You’re right about some older things being better quality than some new things. It’s not because of feminazis It’s because of the eternal quest to manufacture things more cheaply. I cite IKEA furniture made of ground up trash, chips and splinters vacuumed off the sawmill floor and glue.
God only knows what goes on in the Chinese factories that manufacture most everything Americans buy. Or what goes into the products manufacturer in China.
The military is always doing a lot of research and testing to come up with better fabrics and boots. Didn’t the boots in WW2 cause something called trench foot because they held moisture and took days to dry out?
You want the monofocal (am acquainted with two people who got the multi and regretted it). You are going to eventually need reading glasses no matter what, so just buck up and do the monofocal and reading glasses. The only way the multifocal would make sense is if you were one of those people who live in NYC who “just don’t drive” (hahahahaha, yeah, I know). The night glare is apparently nothing to sneer at, and I can only imagine what it would be like in a place like the Valley.
I like driving at night. I make several 400 mile trips a year mostly on the freeways. I love it. For one thing, it feels safer because the cars all have their lights on so it’s easier to see them. There’s long stretches where the freeway doesn’t have lights. It’s fun. Longer but better than TSA and crowds in airports and walking past the 2 city block long gay mural at SFO.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wtxpzw0jvNg
Long story short... 70 year old standard-issue military boots were higher quality than the artisan stuff that sells for +$500 today.
They had thicker, higher quality leather, because back in the days before universal high-school education and anti-natalism, we had lots of hard men employed in aggressive activities like herding cattle, peeling and fleshing hides, and tanning them. Leather actually used to be cheap back in the days when we had huge numbers of hard men killing animals nonstop, and they all reproduced voraciously because no one could tell them otherwise, or they'd be eating a knuckle sandwich. But no, you can't have that anymore... Some little whiny feminist bitch got her way.
Is this going to make you mad enough to slam your computer off, get out there ans start punching people in the fucking god damn face? Boy if this won't do it, I don't think anything will. Get a sex change if you don't kill at least one farm animal today.Replies: @Alden, @Alden, @Jack D
Are you a homosexual? Sounds like it. All the talk of hard men and killing farm animals.
You don’t know anything about stock farming. It’s obvious. Kill an animal a day and you kill of your herd or flock. Not all live stock is raised for quick slaughter in a year or two. Dairy cows and goats give milk for years which is the whole point of a dairy farm. Sheep the whole point is to keep them alive for years for the wool and milk. And have babies every year to sell to the slaughter houses.
My brother’s a dairy farmer if he killed a cow or calf a day he’d destroy his stock in about 100 days. And have no more cows milk to sell and bull calves to send off to the veal factory. And what would he do with the meat bones blood? A family can only eat so much meat. Those rural butchers to deal with a cow carcass are expensive. Pigs not so much but still, why would any farmer want to kill one of his animals every day?
I don’t think you’ve ever been in a stock farm or ranch in your life. Just weird homosexual fantasies.
Boot and shoe makers don’t go around farms buying the skins of freshly slaughtered animals like in medieval times. They buy the leather from factories that buy the leather from wholesalers who buy the skins from slaughterhouses.
I have two computer screens: a laptop screen about 16 inches from my eyes and a giant 43″ monitor about 40 inches from my eyes.
Maybe they were outliers, but I cannot overstress how much they used to carp about the glare...
Basically any illuminated object against a dark background can show this. It's a matter of contrast, which is why Astronomy suffered for me with RK: Things observed through the eyepiece displayed halos against the blackness of space for years, and they still do to some extent.
If they say multifocal includes glare, avoid it.
Without knowing how your workspace is laid out, have you considered tandem monitors next to each other? I don’t go near as big as 43″, but I love having one that I can look up stuff on whilst working on the other (word processing, IDE, or what not…) and having a matched set works for me (your mileage may vary…
Maybe they were outliers, but I cannot overstress how much they used to carp about the glare…
I talked to Elon last night and he said full self driving is going to be available in 6 months. He also said those big glass things that wrap around current cars are going to be replaced by video screens, so in 6 months you won’t ever have to see distances again. Assuming you survive another 10 pandemic years Elon says the brain chip implant will make seeing unnecessary. Elon has not decided if the brain chip will be connected to just visible light + UV and IR sensors or if it will also have radar.
My last pair of single-focus glasses (from Walmart) have an anti-glare coating that is fairly effective–I still use them for night driving. Lenscrafters said they couldn’t put the coating on my progressive lenses because of the material that mine (high power) had to use.
do 1 eye, then wait til the cataracts force the issue on the other.
Yeah, I’m sure wearing a monocle like Col. Klink will help his reputation.
Fashion statement, not TV show prop.
https://www.nearsights.com/
Go ahead and "troll" me now, Scarlet. I know you LUV LUV LUV your TV!Replies: @Simon Tugmutton
You sound like me – a customer for a TV-B-Gone!
https://www.tvbgone.com/
Also works well in electrical stores with 50+ TV screens. Hours of harmless fun; causes apoplexy and other satisfying symptoms in TV addicts. Haven’t yet dared to turn off the widescreen in the pub when (a) the football’s on and (b) 5 seconds before the crucial penalty-kick to determine the game and who gets the European Cup.
***
Steve – good luck with your eyes.
(OK, is the thing for real?)
Yes, and I wish Mr. Sailer good luck with whatever he decides for the medical procedure. It's amazing what the bio-engineers and research doctors have come up with.
At what distance do you need glasses to read or see?
Don’t discount glare or refractions that might occur when you would be looking at those screens.
Basically any illuminated object against a dark background can show this. It’s a matter of contrast, which is why Astronomy suffered for me with RK: Things observed through the eyepiece displayed halos against the blackness of space for years, and they still do to some extent.
If they say multifocal includes glare, avoid it.
Well, if you put it that way...Replies: @Jack D
That’s the problem with “all natural” type solutions in general. Back in the “all natural” days, there was lots of “all natural” disease and death, which is why we developed these “artificial” solutions like implanted lenses in the first place.
Sure, it would be better to keep your own lenses and joints and so on because the man-made replacements are rarely as good (we are really in the very early stages of making replacement parts and the designs are usually not perfect, as you can see from Steve’s question) , but humans were not really designed to live as long as they are living now so lots of parts start to wear out. An implanted lens is not as good the natural lens you had when you were a teenager (at least for those people who had good natural vision, which lots of people don’t), but it’s better than those cloudy 65 year old lenses that you have now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wtxpzw0jvNg
Long story short... 70 year old standard-issue military boots were higher quality than the artisan stuff that sells for +$500 today.
They had thicker, higher quality leather, because back in the days before universal high-school education and anti-natalism, we had lots of hard men employed in aggressive activities like herding cattle, peeling and fleshing hides, and tanning them. Leather actually used to be cheap back in the days when we had huge numbers of hard men killing animals nonstop, and they all reproduced voraciously because no one could tell them otherwise, or they'd be eating a knuckle sandwich. But no, you can't have that anymore... Some little whiny feminist bitch got her way.
Is this going to make you mad enough to slam your computer off, get out there ans start punching people in the fucking god damn face? Boy if this won't do it, I don't think anything will. Get a sex change if you don't kill at least one farm animal today.Replies: @Alden, @Alden, @Jack D
The video confuses quality with price. WWII boots would be expensive to make today because they required lots of expensive natural materials (leather) and lots of hand labor. Today you can only get those types of labor and workmanship in artisanal boots that costs hundreds of $.
However, the military wouldn’t want those boots today even if they were free. Modern boots are lighter and stronger and more waterproof and breathable and so on despite being made from cheap man made materials. (In WWI, “trench foot” was a major problem.) And they are cheap enough that when they wear out you just discard them and get a new pair. This has zero to do with feminism.
Same thing with Ikea furniture. It’s not meant to be a substitute for real hardwood furniture for adults. But say you are a grad student setting up your first apartment. You need something cheap and transportable (because you’re going to be moving every couple of years). Back in the day, you would have bought beat up second hand furniture and it would have been a pain to transport it at moving time. Now you can have brand new Ikea furniture for the same price and when it’s time to move you can break it back down flat and move it easily. After a few years when your income goes up and the thin laminate starts to chip, you can just trash it. It’s like the difference between paper plates and fine china – they both have their own function (BTW the market for fine china has also crashed – people don’t have formal dinner parties anymore). There is obviously a demand for this stuff because Ikea has stores all over the globe. And the stores are fun to be in, with restaurants and play facilities for your kids and there’s a whole warehouse full of furniture so you can take it right home with you.
Meanwhile the US furniture industry has crashed. Not only was traditional furniture expensive to begin with but the distribution model had high markups which made it more expensive. And shopping for furniture was not a fun experience, with pushy salesmen and then you’d get your furniture in two or three months – the stores only had samples and they had to order and custom make every piece.
Because it works and health food quackery doesn’t.
https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/clearing-cataracts-eye-dropsReplies: @Jack D
There is a company called ViewPoint Therapeutics which is currently working on developing this product, which they have re-christened VP1-001. However, it seems like progress is slow (and so far not very promising). They are at the point where they are still giving this stuff to mice. I wouldn’t expect this to be available at your local pharmacy for another decade and probably never. The idea of restoring your natural lenses without surgery is very appealing but finding something that works is very hard. They’ve been looking for decades for something that will reverse the amyloid plaques that cause Alzheimer’s disease (a similar issue) and so far they’ve found zip that really works.
10 percent hate them
80 percent don't find they help
100 percent paid full premium priceI have a non-trivial amount patients who come in wanting these multifocal lenses removed after placement (which requires my involvement as a retina guy and is a much more involved surgery than the initial cataract surgery). In other words, they may work for you, but if they don't, then you're in for a world of annoyance. Tread carefully. If anything, use trial frames/multifocal or bifocal contacts prior to the surgery to see if you enjoy the situation of "static multifocality depending on where you look" or not.That being said, I cannot stress enough the idea that if you are used to glasses for reading, then that's what you should emulate post surgery. It's really no big deal for a presbyopic patient who is used to "not using" glasses at distance. However, if you do select a monofocal lens, make sure to emulate whatever situation that you "don't use glasses for" at present. If it's "I use glasses for everything", then consider targeting distance for the monofocal lens, so you're in a state where you're mainly using glasses for reading, as that tends to be more natural.As an aside, since you tend to be interested in these things, a small pedantic point: presbyopia means you cannot accomodate (i.e. your RANGE of vision no longer includes a swath of focal points, traditionally including that which corresponds to the small print). It does not necessarily mean far-sighted, which goes by the term "Hyperopia". "Myopia/Hyperopia/Emmetropia" specifically refer to the basic STATIC INITIAL state of one's baseline ability to see without glasses - thus someone can be "Hyperopic and presbyopic" (i.e. they're far-sighted at baseline, but also have lost the ability to have a range of vision at any other focal point) or "Emmetropic and presbyopic" (i.e. they're perfect at distance but again, have lost the ability to have a range of vision, so they need help seeing at any other focal point), etc.Replies: @Paperback Writer, @Bill Jones
I think it ‘s great if Steve’s going to do a Learn Urself Dotage column once in while.
I suspect we’ll be seeing a lot more of you.
Much appreciated.
very informative thread here….I was just diagnosed with cataracts 6 months ago by a very attractive female doctor. She said I will likely need surgery in 5 to 10 years (I was 63 y.o. at that time).
I am very much looking forward to the visual hallucinations mentioned in a comment above (the ones resulting from the local anesthetic).
In our very medicalized approach to these things, Ketamine is showing significant promise in treating serious PTSD. (https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/brain-and-behavior/202101/ketamine-and-chronic-ptsd-symptoms )
But, more relevant to this reply, is that occasional purposeful use of mushrooms (psilocybin), acid (LSD), and/or ecstacy (MDMA) by healthy people is achieving a certain level of respectability away from the hippies, raves and clubs.
see e.g.
https://bigthink.com/think-tank/sam-harris-discusses-mdma-and-psychedelics
and https://psychiatryinstitute.com/podcast/psychedelics-ego-research-harris/ (it's a different harris)
It’s strange that you have early cataracts ( my father only got cataracts this year, at 82 years old) but yet you weren’t presbyopic until 53, which is unusual. Do you have high glucose?
Back in the day, after doing this people would indeed use glasses to correct for their now missing lenses but they had to be really really thick glasses (and without them you were as blind as a bat). The reason you want lenses installed in your eyes is to replace your now missing natural lenses without having to wear coke bottle bottom lenses for the rest of your life. The implanted lenses usually work great. It's great to be all natural they way people were back in the day, but back in the day a lot of people also went blind from cataracts.Replies: @James J O'Meara, @BB753
I would have thought that Sailer was too young for cataracts.
I started wearing glasses in the 3rd grade too. My father had my eyes examined after I kept asking him the score of a football game he took me too. He told me to read the scoreboard, and I replied, "What scoreboard?"
My vision improved from -3.50 correction needed in the early 80's to -1.50 now. I'm sure yours did something along the same lines.Replies: @ScarletNumber, @Johnny789
Same exact thing with me, but I was at an Indians game at Municipal Stadium.
This is what Steve is about: seeing the world clearly as it is without fear or favor and removing the cataracts clouding the vision of the body politic the better for all to do so together.
Poor Megan got taken for quite the ride last summer and still hasn’t found her bearings. We should probably try to think about ways to help people like that get back on their feet.
Is your prescription -10 in one eye and -11 in the other? Since you were 6? Then you can tell me more about the corrupting influence of glasses and contacts, tough guy.
A coating on your glasses won’t help if the cause of the glare is in your eye itself – a cloudiness in the lens, or floating detritus in the vitreous humor.
Indeed, one should do some research before picking a surgeon. Healthgrades and RatemyMD are places to start. You can look at their reviews online, although the reviews are often useless. Only in those rare cases when the statistics are good (a lot of reviews) are they perhaps really meaningful.
Consumer Reports had a site where they provided data that had been obtained via FOIA request from Medicare. They looked at the outcomes of surgeries and rated the doctors, taking into account the number of reports, as to whether the surgery they perfomed actually helped over and above random chance. I.e. whether they were really better surgeons.
In any event, it’s worth doing whatever research you can. It’s not easy to find information because the medical profession doesn’t want you to know how good or bad individual doctors might be. The official position of medical associations is that all doctors are above average.
In the prelim to my surgery, I was extensively tested, and questioned about my daily activities. I have always been very near-sighted, so in my case the choice boiled down to how much improvement in my vision I wanted without correction. I opted for a lens that significantly improved my long distance vision, allowed working at the computer, reading, and getting around without glasses, but still required glasses for things like passing my state's a drivers exam. A complication for me was that I'm a recreational shooter and was worried about my aim after surgery. Everything has worked out fine. (My brother was almost as as nearsighted as I but, since he doesn't do nearly as much reading or computer work as me, opted for 20/20 vision. He's also very happy with his new vision.)
BTW, the enhancement of colors after my surgery has been an extraordinary, almost mystical, experience. I'm not a poet so the following words cannot do justice to how much this surgery enhanced my life. Even two years later I still get an occassional feeling of awe and wonder when I see brilliantly green, multi-hued foliage against a background of blue sky fading to cerulean at the zenith, with white clouds in infinite subtle variations floating past. A glass of water seems like a miraculous, crystalline gem.
One other interesting experience is the visual hallucinations one may have in the covered eye after surgery. (The surgery is done one eye at a time and for the day after surgery the eye that has been operated on should remain covered.) These are complex and fascinating. They very much depend on the type of anesthesia one is given. They were much more pronounced and lasted longer for my first surgery than for my second, where a different Fentanyl analogue was used. It's something to look forward to.Replies: @Teri
Jus’ Sayin’… – Would you mind disclosing the name of the Boston practice you went to? I live just over the NH border. Having great medical care accessible within an hour’s drive is a godsend! Thanks
Bullshit. They are called “progressives” now and they work just fine and can be had for under $100 online. I get another pair every other month.
i assume you’re saying this mostly tongue-in-cheek, but you may consider whether you want to take a more purposeful action on this. In the past 5 to 10 years “Psychadelics” have started to be rehabilitated as possible important tools or adjuncts in spiritual and psychological well-being work.
In our very medicalized approach to these things, Ketamine is showing significant promise in treating serious PTSD. (https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/brain-and-behavior/202101/ketamine-and-chronic-ptsd-symptoms )
But, more relevant to this reply, is that occasional purposeful use of mushrooms (psilocybin), acid (LSD), and/or ecstacy (MDMA) by healthy people is achieving a certain level of respectability away from the hippies, raves and clubs.
see e.g.
https://bigthink.com/think-tank/sam-harris-discusses-mdma-and-psychedelics
and https://psychiatryinstitute.com/podcast/psychedelics-ego-research-harris/ (it’s a different harris)
You seem to have encyclopedic knowledge about a huge number of things. I’m surprised at this apparent hole in your knowledge.Replies: @Justkidding
Do you need to have new lenses installed? Seems to me you used to just be equipped with a set of glasses to compensate.
As Jack D explained, glasses don’t fix the problem with cataracts.
You seem to have encyclopedic knowledge about a huge number of things. I’m surprised at this apparent BLIND SPOT in your knowledge.
Modified to the expected description
Yeah, I'm sure wearing a monocle like Col. Klink will help his reputation.Replies: @anon
Yeah, I’m sure wearing a monocle like Col. Klink will help his reputation.
Fashion statement, not TV show prop.
https://www.nearsights.com/
Sunlight is harmful to eyes? How?
No, it doesn't:https://bmcophthalmol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12886-018-1004-y
Yes, it does:https://bjo.bmj.com/content/97/4/389
Yes:https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26441265/
No:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1856929/
It's a good plan to wear eye protection anyway when outdoors, or in any situation where stuff might be flying around.
The first time I rode my motorcycle at night was through Brown County, Indiana long ago, and I didn't wear anything over my eyes so I could see better, but my face, eyes, nose, and mouth soon got peppered and plastered with insects, mostly tiny pinpricks, but a regullar bigger ones, and I soon pulled over to don my goggles. After that, I always wore the full face shield on my helmet when riding at night, and that included LA freeways back when.
Unlike cataracts, diet and lifestyle can slow down or perhaps even prevent AMD. Green, leafy vegetables like spinach are said to slow down AMD, as does dark chocolate, and other foods high in antioxidants.
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/how-diet-may-affect-age-related-macular-degeneration
Now, I avoid night driving. Statistics show it's much more dangerous on the road at night.https://www.forbes.com/2009/01/21/car-accident-times-forbeslife-cx_he_0121driving.html?sh=762307926fc0
Finally, my advice would be to postpone cataract surgery indefinitely.Replies: @Sparkon
Why are you getting implants; can't they just scrape the cataracts off?Replies: @Anonymous
Not persuasive. It would be easy enough to put on a pair of glasses—or sunglasses—when you are out on the course.
https://www.tvbgone.com/
Also works well in electrical stores with 50+ TV screens. Hours of harmless fun; causes apoplexy and other satisfying symptoms in TV addicts. Haven't yet dared to turn off the widescreen in the pub when (a) the football's on and (b) 5 seconds before the crucial penalty-kick to determine the game and who gets the European Cup.
***
Steve – good luck with your eyes.Replies: @Achmed E. Newman
Oh, man. Thank you very much, Simon. I am so gonna get my ass kicked.
(OK, is the thing for real?)
Yes, and I wish Mr. Sailer good luck with whatever he decides for the medical procedure. It’s amazing what the bio-engineers and research doctors have come up with.
OT:
I generally don’t respond to replies because some commenters have bought into a specific belief styem so strongly that it becomes an integral part of their identity. In your case, I’ll respond because it seems most compassionate. As a disclaimer, I’m not a medical professional, just a retired engineer, so you can use the items below to discuss with your medical providers.
Generalized steps to resolving a meniscus tear (and many other maladies, such as cataracts) are given below, and because of the ‘holes’ in the US/Western education system and media indoctrination, some parts may take a considerable amount of time and effort to psychologically resolve before proceeding:
1. First, study what meniscus and its structure, then ask the question whether the condition is too far gone to repair naturally. For example, an athletic person may have continued to subject the knee joint to stress after the first appearance of pain, which may have damaged the meniscus beyond what the body can repair. Remember, barring traumatic circumstances causing the injury, it took time to damage the meniscus, and it will take time for the body to repair itself.
2. You’ll have to relieve [some of] the stress on the joint. This may mean losing some weight, and/or walking with a limp until repair takes hold. I tried knee braces for awhile, but found while they provided a means of psychological support, they easily slipped out of position and didn’t really help in any way. Some would say the psychological support is comforting – I would agree – so don’t be afraid to try it.
3. Ensure the the body has the nutrients to facilitate repair. Primarily, the best references I have found are:
Perfect Health Diet, Paul Jaminet, PhD and Shou-Ching Jaminet, PhD, Scribner, New York, NY, 2013, and
Nourishing Traditions (and also book Nourishing Broth), 2nd Ed, Sally Fallon (with Mary G. Enig, Ph.D.), NewTrends Publishing, Inc., Brandywine, MD, 1999-2001
Perfect Health Diet is primarily important as a [honest, non-pretensive] guide to proper nutrition, and point out specific nutrients that are missing from the the US population overall. You might also look at Jerry Tennant’s book Healing is Voltage on other nutrients (such as his take on Iodine deficiency).
Nourishing Traditions and Nourishing Broth gives the primary recipes for bone broth concentrated with collagen, but you should also add chicken feet in the preparation to increase the collagen content. Organic is best, but if not available …
One can also begin to put multi-collagen power and bone broth proteins in coffee, or as a separate smoothie. Up to you …
4. Next, follow the standard physical therapy regimen of ‘3 minutes hot compress, followed by 3 minutes cold compress – repeated three times, twice per day’ (or per your medical provider/physical therapist recommendation). This promotes circulation [of nutrients] in the joint. Try not to become discouraged if you quit this exercise after about a month because it’s a pain in the ***. I quit after a month or so, and my meniscus still healed.
4. Now we get into the really interesting part. You will notice that the above four steps are all mechanical – they treat the body as is it is a machine. But is it? There are various wisdom traditions that say otherwise and there’s reason to believe their positions contain some form of truth. Why is this important to fixing the meniscus? Because Western medical science is geared toward ‘setting up’ the body to repair itself. In the end, they apply a remedy then step back to let the body heal itself. In contrast to this Western medical procedural model, this step emphasizes helping the body heal itself after the initial conditions are put in place.
I used the Daoist point of view in my therapy, not because it’s the only one, but because it was most cognitively accessible. Their theory is based on health as an offshoot of the philosophy that the human body has a physical component (Jing), an energetic component (Qi), and a consciousness component (Shen). To promote healing, one will have to work with the first two. So here’s what I did:
a) First I studied Dragon Dao Yin exercises. The theory behind these is that during the normal [uninformed existence] human joints fail/become arthritic/etc. in some way because energetic pathogens collect and stagnate within. So the Dao Yin exercises are designed to open the joints so that quality energy (Qi) can begin to flow through the joints and purge the pathogens. It works – you can feel it. Begin the exercises (be persistent for a month or two), then as you relax into the exercises the joints will begin to open up starting at the fingers, up the arms, into the torso and finally legs – happening over time with persistence of practice. The Dao Yin exercises are based on constructs denied by Western medicine, such as Jin Jing (bed of [acquired] meridians) and [quality informed] energy flow through the acquired meridians. With these exercises, you are promoting quality of [healing] energy flowing through the knee joint, which will facilitate accelerated healing.
b) Next, in order for the body to have [spontaneous] energy flow, it’s necessary to ‘get the mind out of the way’. Psychological professionals understand this concept, but there’s really no need to spend money on sessions. The Daoist’s and other wisdom traditions developed breathing techniques that essentially do this – and all you need to do is search out a really extensive explanation of Sung breathing to facilitate this. This technique is designed to eliminate tension in the body, which promotes energy flow [assisting healing of the knee joint]. It works! There’s a warning here, though – this is not recommended if a person has been subjected to extensive conditioning that is geared toward the harm or abuse of other people (or more generally, harm or abuse of the natural order of the existence we inhabit). This is because that mindset fixes tension in the body, and promotes the fixing of negative energy, which draws the person back into the abusive/harmful mindset – leading to a cumulative cyclical downward psychological spiral. If one is part of such a cultural tradition, then the only way out is through extensive psychological deprogramming – something almost impossible to achieve – before commencing with Sung breathing or other energetic techniques.
I’m not going to provide references for the above [energetic] techniques, mainly because this represents a ‘path’, and anyone who has attempted to follow such a path with honest and forthrightness [a certain innocent purity of intent] will be shown the way, automatically. This has been borne out to me many times, and I’m very practical and conservative person, but still open to new ideas.
Something to try, if so inclined At best the meniscus (or other malady) will resolve by itself. At worst, the practitioner becomes more cognitively alert and aware, calmer and more grounded – so what’s not to like.
Opinions and studies are mixed, but the theory is that increased exposure to sunlight leads to increased risk of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), “a leading cause of vision loss worldwide,” according to the authors of the first report, below.
No, it doesn’t:
https://bmcophthalmol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12886-018-1004-y
Yes, it does:
https://bjo.bmj.com/content/97/4/389
Yes:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26441265/
No:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1856929/
It’s a good plan to wear eye protection anyway when outdoors, or in any situation where stuff might be flying around.
The first time I rode my motorcycle at night was through Brown County, Indiana long ago, and I didn’t wear anything over my eyes so I could see better, but my face, eyes, nose, and mouth soon got peppered and plastered with insects, mostly tiny pinpricks, but a regullar bigger ones, and I soon pulled over to don my goggles. After that, I always wore the full face shield on my helmet when riding at night, and that included LA freeways back when.
Unlike cataracts, diet and lifestyle can slow down or perhaps even prevent AMD. Green, leafy vegetables like spinach are said to slow down AMD, as does dark chocolate, and other foods high in antioxidants.
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/how-diet-may-affect-age-related-macular-degeneration
Now, I avoid night driving. Statistics show it’s much more dangerous on the road at night.
https://www.forbes.com/2009/01/21/car-accident-times-forbeslife-cx_he_0121driving.html?sh=762307926fc0
Finally, my advice would be to postpone cataract surgery indefinitely.
Once again, as with AMD, foods high in antioxidants might help stave off the further development of cataracts, even if that deterioration has already started.
The familiar proverb says thatI'm all for that, which is why I avoid driving at night.
Of course, I can't see through Steve's eyes, so I have no real understanding of how much his cataracts are affecting his vision, but since he said his cataracts are developing slowly, I personally would stall, try a diet high in antioxidants, and avoid rushing into a procedure that is irreversible.
As Washington is said to have advised Jefferson,Good luck!Replies: @Sparkon
No editing window appeared for my comment, nor reply button, so I have to stare impotently at my typo because I can’t get there from here.
Should read: mostly tiny pinpricks, but a regular assortment of bigger ones.
[Edit: Now I get the editing window, so it must have been a passing glitch]
Thishttps://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2020/04/fruit-trenches-cultivating-subtropical-plants-in-freezing-temperatures.html
Which is more likely to get you killed? Reading or night driving?
I had mine set for infinity, but wish I had chosen reading distance instead. I’d say a lot more, but you’ve got too much to read here already. Shows how many knowledgeable people love you.
https://twitter.com/JimDMiller/status/1411451337678671875Replies: @MEH 0910
Wait, you can order prescription glasses online? I guess I’m really out of my depth here.
Uber?
No, it doesn't:https://bmcophthalmol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12886-018-1004-y
Yes, it does:https://bjo.bmj.com/content/97/4/389
Yes:https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26441265/
No:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1856929/
It's a good plan to wear eye protection anyway when outdoors, or in any situation where stuff might be flying around.
The first time I rode my motorcycle at night was through Brown County, Indiana long ago, and I didn't wear anything over my eyes so I could see better, but my face, eyes, nose, and mouth soon got peppered and plastered with insects, mostly tiny pinpricks, but a regullar bigger ones, and I soon pulled over to don my goggles. After that, I always wore the full face shield on my helmet when riding at night, and that included LA freeways back when.
Unlike cataracts, diet and lifestyle can slow down or perhaps even prevent AMD. Green, leafy vegetables like spinach are said to slow down AMD, as does dark chocolate, and other foods high in antioxidants.
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/how-diet-may-affect-age-related-macular-degeneration
Now, I avoid night driving. Statistics show it's much more dangerous on the road at night.https://www.forbes.com/2009/01/21/car-accident-times-forbeslife-cx_he_0121driving.html?sh=762307926fc0
Finally, my advice would be to postpone cataract surgery indefinitely.Replies: @Sparkon
Actually, this is wrong. Diet can’t reverse cataracts, but according to some sources, diet can slow down or even prevent the development of cataracts.
https://www.webmd.com/eye-health/cataracts/how-can-i-prevent-cataracts
Once again, as with AMD, foods high in antioxidants might help stave off the further development of cataracts, even if that deterioration has already started.
The familiar proverb says that
I’m all for that, which is why I avoid driving at night.
Of course, I can’t see through Steve’s eyes, so I have no real understanding of how much his cataracts are affecting his vision, but since he said his cataracts are developing slowly, I personally would stall, try a diet high in antioxidants, and avoid rushing into a procedure that is irreversible.
As Washington is said to have advised Jefferson,
Good luck!
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-10-02-0253
Once again, as with AMD, foods high in antioxidants might help stave off the further development of cataracts, even if that deterioration has already started.
The familiar proverb says thatI'm all for that, which is why I avoid driving at night.
Of course, I can't see through Steve's eyes, so I have no real understanding of how much his cataracts are affecting his vision, but since he said his cataracts are developing slowly, I personally would stall, try a diet high in antioxidants, and avoid rushing into a procedure that is irreversible.
As Washington is said to have advised Jefferson,Good luck!Replies: @Sparkon
I managed to get that backwards. Actually it was Jefferson advising Washington.
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-10-02-0253
Like Wokeism, it's a way for people to pretend to be superior ("Oh, unlike you materialist sheep, I perceive the terrible cost of these fripperies.") while these Ignatius Reilly conservatives .never walk the walk. The Woke do it by calling badwhites racists, while living in all white communities, sending kids to private schools, etc.
Richard Weaver, considered a saint or even a God by these types, thought that shoes corrupted the purity of the Southern soul. At least, that's what he wrote from his air-conditioned office at the University of Chicago, with his feet, shod of course, on the desk.
The late Brother R G Stair, who died at 87 last April, ran the Overcomer farm commune down in SC. While awaiting the Apocalypse ("Soon!") his followers eschewed jobs, money, houses, cars (thus, no debt, no need for job or money), Social Security (he opted out) and especially medicine. All were tools of the Devil, designed to rope you into the NWO and take the mark of the Beast. He was crazy, and a sexual predator, but by God he was no hypocrite!
Him I respect.Replies: @Pat Hannagan
Mate, I’m responding to an internet personality who’s as real as I am.
Just to spell it out for the imbeciles: where I respond to Sailer I’m responding to an image of Sailer as relayed by his blog hosted on a Billionaire Jew’s website. I’m not responding to the in-the flesh real-life Steve Sailer. I’m responding to, and dialoguing with, the idea of himself as he posits on this blog and I am, as much as him, a composite of the false ideas you have of me.
I don’t often respond to comments as 1) there’s a kind of censorship policy with regard my posts which ruins my vibe alot and 2) I like to let people roam free on the internet without becoming a drag on the discourse but I need to put your narrative down.
C’mon MAN! Do you think Pat Hannagan is the very essence of who I am?
This is a blog. Out there is real life.
Never the twixt and twain should be confused, and in the disconnect we can have fun and argue.
It’s clearly a distinction that you’re unable to fathom, on blogs and in real life.
(see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law)
It's just inherent in the medium. Also i think that the sheer volume of posts and information have limited just how much parsing and analysis one will invest in trying to puzzle out just exactly what the person is saying.
Maybe because of that, maybe other issues, we're more "new sincerity" and "post-ironic" than "postmodern irony" of the 90s (though i think even that term is dated...).
Anyway, you can engage however you want of course, and if you're misunderstood perhaps clarify, or not, as you choose.
But, jumping on anyone else who didn't divine exactly what flavor of discourse you were engaging in in that particular message as "imbeciles" seems unwarranted to say the least.Replies: @Pat Hannagan
Just to spell it out for the imbeciles: where I respond to Sailer I'm responding to an image of Sailer as relayed by his blog hosted on a Billionaire Jew's website. I'm not responding to the in-the flesh real-life Steve Sailer. I'm responding to, and dialoguing with, the idea of himself as he posits on this blog and I am, as much as him, a composite of the false ideas you have of me.
I don't often respond to comments as 1) there's a kind of censorship policy with regard my posts which ruins my vibe alot and 2) I like to let people roam free on the internet without becoming a drag on the discourse but I need to put your narrative down.
C'mon MAN! Do you think Pat Hannagan is the very essence of who I am?
This is a blog. Out there is real life.
Never the twixt and twain should be confused, and in the disconnect we can have fun and argue.
It's clearly a distinction that you're unable to fathom, on blogs and in real life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdAcS4c0-QkReplies: @vhrm
As you’re probably aware it’s fairly difficult on the web to distinguish between someone who’s joking, engaging in some artistic experiment or just plain shitposting.
(see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law)
It’s just inherent in the medium. Also i think that the sheer volume of posts and information have limited just how much parsing and analysis one will invest in trying to puzzle out just exactly what the person is saying.
Maybe because of that, maybe other issues, we’re more “new sincerity” and “post-ironic” than “postmodern irony” of the 90s (though i think even that term is dated…).
Anyway, you can engage however you want of course, and if you’re misunderstood perhaps clarify, or not, as you choose.
But, jumping on anyone else who didn’t divine exactly what flavor of discourse you were engaging in in that particular message as “imbeciles” seems unwarranted to say the least.
(see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law)
It's just inherent in the medium. Also i think that the sheer volume of posts and information have limited just how much parsing and analysis one will invest in trying to puzzle out just exactly what the person is saying.
Maybe because of that, maybe other issues, we're more "new sincerity" and "post-ironic" than "postmodern irony" of the 90s (though i think even that term is dated...).
Anyway, you can engage however you want of course, and if you're misunderstood perhaps clarify, or not, as you choose.
But, jumping on anyone else who didn't divine exactly what flavor of discourse you were engaging in in that particular message as "imbeciles" seems unwarranted to say the least.Replies: @Pat Hannagan
The imbo invective was to see if JJ O’Meara was coming back 🙂 And also as a general spray.
Great post though, mate. “It’s just inherent in the medium. ” Exactly, 100% what I’m saying!
My comment wasn’t specifically directed at JJO but also to all who take umbrage to my mostly well considered multi-layered commentary on society via a bi-weekly drunken poetic song-post at a guy who’s sitting in his clothes cupboard’s website who meticulously moderates comments responding to his own autistic observations.
That’s all.
As I say, I only get pretty much two shots per cache clearing 24 hour period so I try to make every count hit.
Btw, re. irony: my own feelings on ironic posting would take at least a short novel length to explain but I will say that irony is a disabling impediment to whatever goal one pursueth. It undercuts our sincerity. Daily Stormer, and every Anglin post, is always undercut and disabled by his irony.
Daily Stormer is like reading an Afghanistan war veteran, with war veteran bacon face, speaking through his neck vibrator explaining how even though he has no legs and dick will overcome this minor setback and make his mark upon the world which will RESONATE throughout all generations!
Generations which, in time, through his sire, will set right the course of cybernetic dysgenic jewish medical ingenuity and mainstream ironic discourse, to one day fulfill the supreme ironic directive of all Generation Millenial! Their complete fusion with a giant kike dildo impregnating a coon!