It was quite frightening to realize that something potentially so catastrophic had happened to me and that I had not recognized the risk and had just tried to tough it out without seeking help. On reflection afterwards, I realized that it probably happened twice – both times, when I was far from home and in situations where emergency medical help would have been hard to find. I was very lucky.

It’s absolutely true that this is not something you want to experience if it can be avoided. But how awful for you to have the treatment CAUSE a new vision problem when you had been asymptomatic before.

The complication I have is the last of the risks/complications on the list here. And here’s a longer discussion of the phenomenon.

Before my eye surgery, I was told it was vanishingly rare for it to happen. But it happened to me. I was told I absolutely needed the surgery because of the narrowness of my angles, although I’d never had an attack. Mine had progressed from grade 3 to grade 1 (1 is one of the more severe types). The grades are explained here. From that same article, here’s a quote:

An adverse event glaucoma specialists greatly fear after prophylactic laser iridotomy is the ghost or double image resulting from the lid not fully covering the iridotomy hole.

The stories here of wonderful vision without glasses after cataract correction are almost enough to make me wish that mine would hurry up and get worse.

My cataract surgery was only two months ago and appears to have been quite different. The anesthesia completely closed down movement of the eye and I saw nothing beyond a the white drape that covered the eye not being treated. There were no commands from the surgeon for me to do anything. But hey it worked for both of us. More than one way to fix a cataract it appears.