Assessment says monofocal set for distance. So that's reading glasses for everything up close, forever?

Had my assessment on Tuesday and surgery is going ahead this summer, right eye first. All fine until the lens conversation. The surgeon recommends a monofocal lens set for distance in both eyes, which as I understand it means the far away world goes lovely and sharp and I need reading glasses for everything closer than the television. Forever.

I sew. I do the church accounts. I read two books a week. The idea of hunting for readers seventeen times a day at 68 makes me want to weep, and then my neighbour tells me she got "the fancy lenses" and reads the hymn book with no glasses at all, so now I'm wondering why I wasn't offered fancy.

I should say the surgeon did ask about driving and I do the early run to church in the dark half the year, and he wrote something down at that point. Do I go back and ask about the multifocal ones? Or is there something about me that made him steer away from them that he was too polite to say? I didn't think to ask a single question until I was in the car park.

Monofocals both eyes here, two years in, set for distance exactly as they're suggesting for you. Straight answer: yes, readers for close work, no way round it with my setup. I keep a pair by the chair, a pair in the truck, a pair on my head that I can't find. It's mildly annoying about four times a day.

And I'd pick the same again without blinking. Distance is crisp like it hasn't been since I was forty, and at night the road is clean, headlights are just headlights, no rings, no fuzz. Cheap and boring wins some races.

The neighbour with the fancy lenses could be me, so here's the other side. Multifocals in both eyes, and it's true, no glasses anywhere in the house, crossword and driving both. But you've maybe seen my other thread: the first three months I had rings round every headlight and streetlamp at night and genuinely wondered if I'd made an expensive mistake. It faded, mostly, and I'm delighted NOW, but if someone told me they drive country lanes before dawn all winter I would not breezily wave them toward my lenses.

Also they were a chunk of extra money, which nobody mentions at hymn book bragging time.

Standard distance lenses in both my new eyes and readers on a chain round my neck like a proper granny. The readers bother me about a tenth as much as the cataracts did. Just another data point, Betty.

Betty, the direct answer first: yes, monofocal lenses set for distance in both eyes means reading glasses for close work, permanently, and that is the honest deal your surgeon described. A monofocal focuses at one distance only, and it buys you the most predictable, crisp vision with the fewest night-time side effects, which is very likely why the note was made when you mentioned dark early drives: multifocal designs split the incoming light to give you more than one focus, and the price of that is a higher chance of glare and haloes around lights at night, exactly as Ken experienced. They reduce dependence on glasses for many people, but they do not guarantee freedom from them, they suit some eyes and lifestyles poorly, and they are usually an additional cost. The site's guide to monofocal versus multifocal lenses lays the trade-off out plainly: glasses dependence on one side, night-vision effects on the other, with neither lens simply "better".

Two things are worth raising when you go back with your car park questions. First, targets: a monofocal does not have to be set for distance; some people who live at reading range choose near focus and wear glasses for distance instead. Second, ask about monovision, where monofocal lenses are set with one eye for distance and one for near; it suits some people well and not others, and it can often be trialled with contact lenses before anything is decided. Whether either fits your eyes, your sewing and your dark lane in December is exactly what your own surgeon can weigh and a forum cannot, so book the conversation rather than wondering. Assessments happily run to a second visit for precisely this.

Went back, list in hand this time. He talked me through it all very patiently: my dark driving was indeed the note he wrote down, and with my eyes and my winters he still recommends the distance monofocals. We talked about the monovision idea, I'm trying it with contact lenses for a fortnight first to see if my brain likes it. Either way I've made my peace with readers, I've ordered three pairs in violent colours so they can't hide. Thank you all, especially Harold's pair-on-the-head warning, which I intend to ignore and then live.