I posted some here back in feb of 08 when I was working up the nerve to
have my cataracts done. Got some nice advice, and so I'm reporting back
how things turned out.

First off, the surgery was a breeze. Nothing to it at all, just as I'd
been told. I think getting up really early ( for me ) was the worst
part. Quick and painless procedure. I had my left eye done in september
as I recall. Right one done a month later, must have been october. I'm
trying to work back from memory, I know I have a 4 month from second eye
exam coming early february.

I'm looking forward to that, as I do have a few odd visual things going
on they tell me are related to the remaining posterior capsule. If
zapping that eliminates the issues, I'll be absolutely satisfied. If it
doesn't, I'll still be quite happy with the outcome.

My vision was slightly nearsighted, left eye -1.75 ( 0.5 astigmatism ),
right was -2.0 ( no astigmatism ). I've seen small flares around lights
since my teen years, I'm 54 now, but other than that the cataracts were
no big deal, until about 3 or 4 years ago, when things started getting
gradually worse. I had the usual issues, uncorrectable blur, ghost
images, flares around lights. Eventually my left eye was a blurry mess
and had a BAD double ( ghost ) image. The right went thru a ghost image
stage then that cleared up but vision in that eye was " waxy ", best I
can do to describe it.

I opted for the Crystalens IOL's.  

The left one was an AT50SE, iirc, and my vision was amazing right off.
As soon as I woke up from the procedure I could see great at distance.
And the colors.... oh yeah, I could tell the difference between blue and
green ...whoooohooo. Oh, and since my pupil stayed dilated for about 10
days, looking at any lights was like the 4th of July on steroids. Kinda
fun once I realized that was normal. Within a week or so or two I could
focus on closer stuff. The things actually worked.

Second eye. That one is an HD500 lens, and wasn't nearly as nice vision
right off. Same power IOL as the fist eye, the plan was to get me a few
inches better close up vision. The glitch was that it just looked odd,
indescribably odd. After a few weeks, that gradually cleared ( mostly )
and that eye is good too.

And yes, the HD500 lens has much better close up focus, but there is
still an oddness about it. I suspect there is a wrinkle in the posterior
capsule causing this. Pair of ghosts in that eye, one above and one
below a light source, opposite each other and slightly rotated off
vertical. A wrinkle tipped about 30 degrees ???

I'm concerned but not panicked about this. The reason being that my
first eye developed an amazing bright banding thru lights about 14 days
post op, and I freaked out on that. Called, went in, had them look at
it. Total panic on my part. Got the wrinkle story, and so compared to
that the right eye subtle ghosts are nothing. Oh, and the light banding
gradually went nearly away. It's still barely there, but I don't notice
it anymore. What I do notice it a return of the flares .... so ....
hopefully they'll laser the things next month and all this minor stuff
will go, if in fact, they are caused by the posterior capsule wrinkling
or secondary cataract-ing up.

I focused on the minor problems, and left out how amazingly better my
vision is. Let me fix that now. I'm glasses free, as far as normal day
to day stuff. Yes, if I need to take a watch apart, I'd wear some mild
power readers. For a while I used some +1.00 for working with my
computer, but I've abandoned those. I don't need glasses to drive, both
eyes checked 20/15 for distance in november. I don't know the J system
used for close eye evaluation and so don't recall how that was. In any
case, it's turned out quite usable. I can read labels and use my laptop
comfortably. So, all in all it's turned out great. I have fine distance
vision and fine mid vision and usable up close. For really close stuff
I'd use some readers, and I knew that was a possibility going in.

Would I do it again ?

In a heartbeat.

Like I said, I'm going back in feb and I'll be whining about the small
flares and the right eye double image. I'll post more about that then.

Any questions ?

jim d