Your Cataract Surgery
Removing Cloudy Vision
Quickly and Painlessly
As we age, our natural eye lenses begin to lose their flexibility – to the point where, over time, the lens cannot efficiently change focus. A cloudy area eventually forms within the lens, disrupting light passing through it, and leading to blurred vision that progressively becomes worse. This is the essence of a cataract. Nearly 25 million Americans, most over the age of 40, suffer from cataracts, and at least half of people 65 or older in the United States have either had cataracts or surgery to fix them. Fortunately, cataract surgery is quick, painless and relatively simple.
Cataract Symptoms
Cataract SymptomsThough cataracts themselves do not cause pain, they exhibit a variety of classic symptoms. Among those are:
- Cloudy or blurred vision
- Squinting of the eyes in bright light situations
- Double vision
- Halos and glare around lights
- Headaches
- Difficulty seeing at night
What Kind of Cataract Do You Have?
The vast majority of cataracts result from the wear and tear of aging. Just as the rest of our body begins to lose plasticity through the years, our eyes are prone to these same issues. As our eye lens hardens and clouds up, vision becomes noticeably affected.
There are, however, other types of lesser-known cataracts, too. You may develop a traumatic cataract, as the result of an eye injury that occurred a year or two prior. Some people suffer from secondary cataracts that can form after surgery for different eye conditions, such as glaucoma, or from diseases like diabetes. Likewise, radiation cataracts can result from undergoing a series of radiation treatments. Though rare, it’s even possible for babies to be born with congenital cataracts or to develop them in early childhood.
What to Expect from Your Cataract Surgery
What to Expect from Your Cataract SurgeryThe success rate for cataract surgery is phenomenally high, with as many as 99% of cataract surgery patients regaining useful vision. Our medical professionals at Advanced Eye Surgery Clinic offer cataract surgery as one of our recognized treatment specialties.
When you come in for this painless, minimally invasive outpatient procedure, we prep you for the surgery by numbing your eyes with a topical eye drop anesthetic. Then we make a tiny incision in the cornea, in order to insert a minuscule ultrasonic probe that breaks the faulty lens into minute pieces and suctions them from the eye. Finally, our surgeon implants an artificial intraocular lens (IOL) into the just-removed natural lens’ place. Taking only 10 to 20 minutes to complete, cataract surgery is considered one of the safest, most common and effective surgical procedures in modern medicine.
We invite you to ask about one of our newest technologies, LASER CATARACT SURGERY, which allows us to perform cataract surgery with an image-guided femtosecond laser. This computer-controlled process can lead to even greater precision and a faster recovery period.
Post-Operative Care
Once your procedure has been performed, the eye is covered with a clear, sterile shield to protect it from trauma. After a brief period of rest, you can return home that same day, transported by a designated driver, and return to office work the following day. For several days, you may experience sensitivity to light, some itching or minor discomfort, though we will prescribe eye drops to aid in the healing and to help prevent infection. Most people notice improvement almost immediately, though it is not uncommon to experience some blurred vision at first.
Repair for Complications
In certain cases, cataract patients could develop a slight clouding on the covering of their new lens. This condition is called secondary cataract, and it can be repaired through a treatment known as a posterior capsulotomy. Using an Nd: YAG laser, our surgeon removes the rear lining of the lens capsule to allow light to make its way to the retina. No anesthesia is required for this painless procedure, which can be done in 2 to 3 minutes. Most patients report improved vision and reduced glare almost immediately afterward.
The Right IOL for You
We want you to achieve the best possible results from your surgery. Thanks to advancing cataract technology, there are many good replacement lens choices available to you from our clinic. You can choose multifocal IOLs that enable full vision correction at all distances, which, in most cases, should eliminate your need for eyeglasses or contact lenses. If you do not mind wearing reading glasses, monofocal lenses – for focusing at one specific distance – offer a satisfactory solution. We also offer Toric IOLs, to correct astigmatism, and refractive lenses for distance and near vision.
Aspheric lenses typically offer better functional vision than that from traditional spherical lenses, which do not eliminate spherical aberration. Every intraocular lens, however, has its own advantages and disadvantages. So it is ultimately your decision as to which lens is most conducive to your lifestyle and expectations.