Now seven weeks post surgery on the first eye, and I have a few complications, though nothing serious. At four and six weeks, I had followup appointments with my regular eye doctor, and it seems I wasn't seeing as well as immediately after the surgery. In fact, my vision was 20/40 -- barely enough to pass the driver test which I have to do later this year. He referred me back to the surgeon to see if some laser tweaking was called for. The surgeon discussed with me three issues I'm having:
PVD - Posterior Vitreous Detachment. This condition actually just occurred a few days before I was to see the surgeon. I googled the symptoms and correctly identified this. It helped that a good friend of mine just recently had a bout of this herself. It is when the vitreous material in the eye separates from the retina resulting in noticeable floaters and flashes of light in the peripheral vision. It is fairly common in older people, though I hadn't heard of it before my friend had it. It is more likely to occur in near-sighted people, and also post cataract surgery. As we age, the vitreous material shrinks and pulls away from the retina (this is different from detached retina). In most cases, including mine, the retina is not damaged and the condition will usually heal on its own in about four weeks or so.
Cloudy membrane. Sometimes, post cataract surgery, the membrane that contains the new lens can also become clouded. This has occurred with my right eye (the same one with PVD). The fix is a simple laser procedure in the office. However, as my eyes are still healing, I won't get this procedure until mid-September. Both this procedure and the healing up of the PVD should improve my vision in the right eye once again. At this time, the left eye doesn't appear to have this problem.
Astigmatism. I guess I don't have an ordinary astigmatism. I have an unusual shaped eye. The surgeon did caution me that because of this I may not have the perfect correction I desire. He did do some laser work on my eyes during the cataract surgery, but he is reluctant to do anything further now as it could actually harm my vision. So, we've gone as far as we can on that issue. I will wait to see how I am seeing after September. But it seems likely I will need readers for some reading (as I do now). And I may need driving glasses.
Oh well, at least I'm not blind.
