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Medical Forum / General / Vision / July 2007Color Vision through IOL
As some of you know, I recently had a cataract surgery in my right eye, with a new IOL implant. The cataract developed after a macular hole surgery (vitrectomy and 2-month gas bubble), followed by a retinal detachment shortly thereafter (another vitrectomy, laser, cryotherapy, scleral buckle and another 2-month gas bubble). Both surgeries were successful, but resulted in a pucker right above the macula, and a very thick cataract (stage 3), impairing my vision. My myopia also was increased by about 3.5D in the affected eye. My good left eye has stage 1 cataract with no significant impact on my vision. My vision after the cat removal and the IOL was improved significantly, but will not be correctable to 20/20 due to the retinal damage. I have read a lot about the brightness of colors following cat surgery, however my experience is somewhat different, given my opportunity to compare side-by-side color vision through stage 1 cataract against clear new IOL. The no-cat white is whiter. The no-cat sky is bluer. Some othe light colors are somewhat brighter (as if they were mixed with white). But all other colors are more intense through my other eye -- the yellow is yellower, the green is greener, the red is redder, and even the darker blue is bluer through my stage 1 cataract. In addition, my night vision in the no-cat eye is quite poor. How could it be? One explanation I have is that I might have lost a substantial amount of cones due to macular damage. Does it make sense? Could it be? BTW, my color vision in both eyes combined is somewhat in the middle and I get both the brightness and the intensity. it could be loss of cones, but I doubt it. Instead, I think that you are getting so much more light into the iol eye than the other, that you are being dazzled into thinking the colors are less vivid. You might try getting a neutral grey filter that "tones down" the iol eye to roughly the same brightness perception as the other, then compare those colors. w.stacy, o.d. >As some of you know, I recently had a cataract surgery in my right >eye, with a new IOL implant. The cataract developed after a macular [quoted text clipped - 33 lines] > > You now have better contrast sensitivity in that eye now that there is no cataract to scatter the light about. > As some of you know, I recently had a cataract surgery in my right > eye, with a new IOL implant. The cataract developed after a macular [quoted text clipped - 31 lines] > BTW, my color vision in both eyes combined is somewhat in the middle > and I get both the brightness and the intensity. The best source for an explanation about this would be your retinal specialist. I can offer a couple of possibilities, for what they're worth. The pucker (actually a layer of scar tissue) you developed could be affecting your perception of colors. So could the blue-light filtration feature of your AcrySof IQ lens. When Alcon introduced this feature a few years ago, critics (mostly from rival lens manufacturers such as AMO) claimed that it would cause a distortion in color perception. Alcon did conduct tests (but only on people with healthy retinas) and reportedly found that their blue-filtration lenses did not affect color perception. However, I've read online reports from people who claim otherwise. Personally, I've found that my perception of colors in the blue-violet range is different in each of my eyes (both of which have AcrySof IQ lenses). I suspect that this may be the result of the blue-filtration feature in an eye with a less than perfect retina. I wrote to Alcon about it, but they weren't very interested. >How could it be? One explanation I have is that I might have lost a >substantial amount of cones due to macular damage. Does it make >sense? Could it be? I don't think anyone can give you a definite answer, but I believe your guess is the most likely cause-- i.e. you have damage to the cone-rich macular region in your surgical eye thereby causing diminished color vision. The fact that the eye also had cataract surgery is not the important point. It's that the macula was damaged. Color changes that occur following cataract surgery are most prominent when the cause of the cataract is nuclear sclerosis (i.e. yellowing). Profound yellowing filters out the short wavelength (blue) end of the visible spectrum so that many patients report that blue objects (e.g. the sky) seem more enriched following surgery. Cataracts caused by posterior subcapsular changes, which was probably the type of cataract you had, are not accompanied by yellowing so color changes are less common. Of course all this is conjecture, but I think its quite reasonable conjecture. |
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