I'm 58 and up until a week or two ago, I had never been to an eye doctor or optometrist. I had great vision in all ranges and any kind of light up until somewhere in my 40s and never needed glasses for anything. Then, in my 40s, presbyopia started kicking in. That's where the lenses in your eyes start to harden and you start losing your near vision. Since then, I've been getting along with just cheap drug store magnifiers/reading glasses for closeup stuff.
For the last two or three years however, my vision has been getting much worse. I thought it was just presbyopia so I didn't do much about it because our health care system doesn't cover any eye surgery costs for that and I don't have the money to pay for eye surgery owing to not having had much work since oil prices tanked in 2015 (the economy here in Alberta is pretty dependent on the oil industry and oil prices).
Not too long ago, I finally decided I should look into these vision problems I'm having and looked into what the symptoms of presbyopia and cataracts are. I was stunned to see that most of my symptoms were consistent with cataracts and not presbyopia. That's actually good news because our health care system will pay for basic cataract surgery. So for the first time in my life, I actually went in to have my eyes checked by an optometrist. Turns out I do have cataracts in both eyes so now I can get cataract surgery to fix my vision problems.
Our health care system will only pay for the surgery and lens replacement with basic, simple monofocal lenses but I can get premium lenses if I don't mind paying the difference. I don't mind paying the difference and will opt for getting tri-focal or another type of premium lens if they'll work for me. My first appointment with an ophthalmologist is this Monday afternoon. Before then, I'm trying my best to learn as much as I can about the different alternative intra-occular lenses (IOLs) that are out there, their limitations. pros and cons. etc., so I can ask intelligent questions and can make sure whatever goes into my eyes is going to give me the best chance of having good vision at all ranges and not needing to wear glasses at all or at least not for most things other than maybe really close-up things.
It's going to be an interesting journey and the decisions I make with respect to my eyes in the next little while will have an important effect on my vision for the rest of my life. I know there are a lot of people on this forum that are in my age group or older so I suspect that a number of you have had IOL replacement surgery already. Any advice/insights you can give me would be most welcome. What type of IOLs did you get? Were there any negative or positive effects on your ability to ski that came from the lenses you chose or from getting your lenses replaced in general? How long did it take your brain to adjust to the new lenses in your eyes? I'm interested to hear what others' experience has been with IOL replacement surgery with respect to skiing and in general.