Question:
MFIOL's, AIOL's, or monofocals . . . or are you more lens-neutral?
And does your predisposition against it vary with amount of hyperopia
or is it a pretty steady "anti" for all hyperopic presbyopes?
Answer:
As to the amount of hyperopia, I don't think one should opt for elective
eye surgery kind if the amount were less than a couple of diopters,
unless cataracts are starting to develop. No upper limit, and IMO the
more the better. A 50 year old +7.00 should have lens exchanges done
without thinking twice, and should not even consider LASIK.
I have a -9.50 & -12.75 vision while being a "shade" under 70. Just
got back from my semi-annual OD visit because they were watching for
"when I whould need to have cataract surgery" for the past 3 yrs; now,
I'm told that "anytime I wanted to have it done".
The OD informed that I didn't have any problems because I had 1 good
eye (relatively with glasses on). The thing is that "they" (HMO) feel
that it would be best if I had surgery on both eyes due to the how bad
the vision on both eyes were & adjustment to the new situation would
be much better.
The first issue is what strength of lens to put inside your eyes. If you
don't decide, or don't seem knowledgeable about it, the doctor will just
decide for you, based on his knowledge and experience of what is best for
most people. If you aren't "most people", you might not be happy.
Another poster on this group (George Steber) just had cataract surgery and
is not happy with the decision that the doctor made. My choice, and that
of most people, was to have a lens that made my distance vision sharp, and
then I used OTC reading glasses for close vision. This mimicked what I
had been doing before the surgery (contacts for distance, reading glasses
over them for close). The danger here is that the measurements are not
that precise, and you might end up slightly hyperopic. This is pretty
much useless for anything. If you end up slightly myopic, then at least
you can see close without correction.
