Need Reading Glasses After Lasik??

[LCNY]

I'm 44 year old male that had mild myopia (my prescription was roughly -1/-1.25). My near vision was great with no signs of presbyopia or difficulty reading up close. I went for a lasik consultation two months ago and asked the doctor if the procedure would impact my near vision. He responded that I was the perfect candidate and that all people start to need reading glasses at my age, but that the procedure itself would NOT impact the date I would need reading glasses. Well, last week I had the procedure and my near vision is substantially degraded. At first I could not read at all. That improved a bit the first 3 days, but I have not seen any improvement during the last 5 days. The doctor said that I would need reading glasses.

My question -- shouldn't the doctor have known what the outcome of the procedure would be? My initial exam was two hours, with lots of tests. If the doctor was more upfront, I would not have done the procedure -- I traded near vision for far vision. I wouldn't have undergone surgery for this trade.

Any thoughts are appreciated.

[ohredwood]

I'm not sure if this post is really serious or not. I find it difficult to believe that you are saying your doctor told you he could fix up your distance vision or nearsightedness and not sacrifice your close up vision. No offense but either you misunderstood or you got a quack for a doctor. I have similiar vision as yours, and in 3 weeks I'll be forty. My eye doctor, who is the surgeons partner, said the pro's and cons of what I was about to do when I first did it 3 years ago. I would go immediately into reading glasses. You can't have both worlds the way I understand it, and they said I was a perfect candidate for monovision. Since your sight was what mine was, that was a good option for you too. You have a gift, your up close vision is very good, but if you had both eyes done, you lost that gift to get distance vision, so yea now you will need readers, unless you have one eye undone? I guess I'd get comfortable with glasses for just up close now, if it was me.

[Remander]

My informed consent that I signed said that if I was over 40 and they corrected for distance, I would need readers. We talked about it at length. I decided to go ahead because I'd need readers eventually anyway. This just sped it up.

I was about 41, and I made it 2 or 3 more years before I needed the readers.

[lex]

Hello Remander,
I have read you had an enhancement on Thursday, April 19, 2007 for about -0.75 and it was (and still) a success.
I wonder if all that astig was removed in the first lasik or enhancement.?
Did you have it in both eyes?
thanks,

lex

[Remander]

Hello Remander,
I have read you had an enhancement on Thursday, April 19, 2007 for about -0.75 and it was (and still) a success.
I wonder if all that astig was removed in the first lasik or enhancement.?
Did you have it in both eyes?
thanks,

lex

I think I had some astig in both eyes, one more than the other. I guess the first round knocked it out. In any event, it's all gone now.

[LasikExpert]

My question -- shouldn't the doctor have known what the outcome of the procedure would be?

It may be less that your doctor didn't know and more that your doctor failed to communicate. Full distance correction will be at the expensive of near vision if you are presbyopic. There is a bit of a mechanical advantage over presbyopia when wearing glasses. Your doctor did not communicate to you the consequences of full distance correction, but I suspect the issue may be more complicated.

If you are overcorrected into hyperopia (farsighted, longsighted) vision, near vision becomes very poor. Regression may resolve a small overcorrection, but you need to know your true refractive error with a cyclopegic refraction (which is better, one or two?) with the natural lens paralyzed from being able to accommodate (change focus from near to far).