Peter is a fun-loving guy with a great sense of humor, but he carries a high level of expectation in matters pertaining to his vision. He wanted to explore the option of LASIK, which would have been possible, but I instead advised cataract-style surgery for him, after reviewing his particular situation.
In my opinion, cataract-style surgery achieves slightly better quality of vision than LASIK, for many people in Peter’s age range and starting prescription. This means slightly better vision at night, with less potential glare and halo, than with the best that LASIK can offer.
With both types of surgery, I tell patients that we are endeavoring to eliminate the distance prescription but are not eliminating glasses altogether — reading glasses will still be necessary afterwards (that is, unless we target monovision as a goal). We talked about this at length, and Peter decided to have cataract-style surgery.
Now, while he does wear reading glasses (and the photo shows them hanging around his neck on a “keeper”) he is thrilled overall with his results.
