Will you need glasses after Cataract surgery?

If you are like most patients, your old prescription glasses will no longer work very well with the newly operated eye. Some patients continue to use their old prescription eyeglasses to see with the un-operated eye. If the old prescription lens is bothersome to the newly operated eye, you may opt to remove the lens from your eyeglass frame. As your operated eye regains better distance vision, you may choose to stop wearing your old eyeglasses, for as many tasks as possible. In general, however, the better your eye is in focus for distance, the blurrier it will be up close without glasses. Until your eyeglass prescription is updated for the operative eye, you will not have optimal focus for both reading and far distance. Most patients wait several weeks following surgery until their prescription is stable, before changing or getting new eyeglasses. During this waiting period, one helpful hint is to try over-the-counter reading glasses in order to read. Sold at most drug and grocery stores, these temporary readers may not be perfect, but they are inexpensive and harmless to wear, and often provide reasonably good reading vision. They are available and labeled in 10 different powers that range from plus one (+1.00), up to plus three (+3.00). Choose a pair with the lowest power needed to see well with the operated eye. These reading glasses should work much better if you eventually have cataract surgery on your second eye. Although most patients are understandably nervous about undergoing cataract surgery, afterwards, the sense of relief is often accompanied by curiosity about what exactly was done. You should first appreciate that this is one of the most precise and delicate microsurgical operations in all of medicine, and is performed on one of the smallest and most precious parts of the body. It requires an operating microscope, microscopic instruments, a well trained team, and the unique skills, experience, and steady hands of your surgeon.