I seem to like it brighter now

[redbird]

I seem to like, or want, my apartment to be brighter now than before the cataract surgery, which is counter-intuitive. A month ago I had (mild) cataracts in both eyes, and was wearing photo-sensitive glasses that were old enough that they were always very slightly dark. Now, I'm using over-the-counter reading glasses, with clear lenses, and am comfortable with a level of light that seemed like too much pre-surgery.

My guess here would be that, pre-surgery, my pupils were dilating a bit more, to make up for the cataract blocking some of the light. But that's a guess. What I know is that I'm now comfortable with the overhead light on when I'm exercising on the bedroom floor, rather than needing to turn off everything except the lamp on my bedside table.

I'm also adjusting more easily than I'd expected to walking around without glasses, either in the apartment (when not reading) or outdoors at night and on cloudy days.

(I had been wearing glasses essentially all the time--taking them off only to shower and sleep--for many years, so I literally don't remember what it was like to go outside without glasses.)

Comments

[coth]

I was told that this was normal for artificial lenses - they don't let as much light through as natural ones. With toric lenses I have almost perfect vision (down to 5pt text) if the light is bright enough, and do not see well in the dark at all. We have much brighter bulbs in our house these days.

[thnidu]

Yay for the improvement!

[otter]

That sounds like a good thing :)

[redbird]

I think it is, though I'll be surer when I try going into the subway station with my sunglasses on. Pre-surgery, I was pleasantly surprised by how well that worked with my old prescription sunglasses, and when I'd had just the left eye operated on, it worked okay with the cheap non-prescription ones, so I'm optimistic.

I don't want to wear sunglasses in the T, but I want to be able to go downstairs, maybe get to the platform or even on the train, and then take them off, not have to switch at the entrance, when other people are also trying to go down the stairs, escalator, etc. In theory, the entire red and orange lines are accessible; in practice, several station elevators are closed for months for repairs, and at different stations that means anything from "use the other end of the station" to "there's an escalator down" to "take the train to the next station and ask someone to summon a shuttle van." I can do some stairs, but prefer to use escalators, elevators, or ramps when possible. And I've lived here long enough to get used to the greater accessibility of the Boston subway than of the New York or Montreal metro systems.

[otter]

We have a long way to go to making public transit truly accessible.

[sfred]

Interesting!

[bibliofile]

Huh, interesting side effect. Does the seasonal variation make a difference, too, I wonder?

Walking around without glasses on can be pretty cool in many ways. Except maybe the first time you do it during the first snow with big flakes. I found it a little startling, initially, when the flakes came right at me -- and weren't stopped by my glasses.

[erik]

In my case, the cataract did not dim all shades equally. So after the lens replacement everything looked bluer in one eye than the other until my brain suddenly compensated. (because I still have a small incipient cataract in the unrepaired eye) So maybe your pupils were dilating because the frequency that triggers that was being blocked, but you wanted dimmer light because the frequency that makes your eye complain about too much light is different and was getting through.