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Posts Tagged ‘Cataract Surgery’

After the cataract surgery you can return home stay quietly for two to three days. Do not lift any heavy objects. Do not bend down. You can watch TV and resume your normal diet.

It is better to wear dark glasses for a week to protect your eyes, even when you sleep. You should never rub your eyes. You should completely prevent your eyes from coming into contact with water and soap. You should never go for a swim or take showers, till the incision heals.

You can return to your office for desk work. You should take extensive precaution to see that your eyes do not come into contact with any dust or dirt. Completely avoid any dusty atmosphere. Avoid driving for at least one week after the surgery.

Post operative care involves the application of medications like the eye drops and ointment prescribed by the doctor, regularly. Wash your hands clean before you apply any medication. You should always use sterilized strips to wipe the drops of medicine that comes out of your eye. Alternately get surgical cotton and cut it into small square pieces. Put in the pressure cooker for ten minutes after the pressure develops. Then this cotton would be sterilized. Store it carefully and use it.

You may experience watery eyes a for few days after surgery. After the cataract surgery our eyes could turn red. You will be asked to meet your doctor the day after your surgery. You will be told to contact the doctor immediately if

o You experience severe pain of the eyes.

o Your vision becomes suddenly blurred

o If you see sudden flashes of light.

o If you see things floating across

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Today with the emergence of medical tourism, patients can not only get world class treatment for cataract removals, they can also make huge cost savings that enable them to take a holiday in the country of treatment with the savings.

Low Cost Cataract Removal and a Free Holiday!

Before we look at the huge cost savings and the opportunity to get the free holiday of a lifetime, let’s look at what cataract removal involves.

Cataracts Definition

The lens of the eye, which is responsible for focusing images onto the retina, is normally transparent.

Cataract removal is a procedure to remove a cataract that is a cloudy or opaque area in the lens of the eye that is impairing vision.

As a normal part of aging for example, the lens begins to cloud and causes a progressive, painless decrease in vision, which results in a cataract removal being needed to restore optimum vision.

Procedures for Cataract Removal

There are two common cataract removal methods.

Phacoemulsification technique:

An ultrasound probe breaks the cloudy lens into tiny fragments and removes them through a small incision.

A plastic lens implant is inserted to replace the natural lens. Because the incision is tiny, stitches are often not necessary and visual improvement is usually noticeable immediately after surgery.

Extracapsular technique:

Entails the removal of the cataract as one entire piece. This requires a larger incision and stitches.

A plastic lens implant then replaces the natural lens. Recovery is usually slower, due to the larger incision.

Cataract Removal – Success Rates
The outcome of cataract surgery is usually excellent.

The operation has low risk, the pain is minimal, and recovery time is short.

The patient can leave straight after the operation and can expect complete healing in about 10 weeks.

Cataract removal costs

Cataract removal costs in the USA are approximately $2,400 – $4,930 and in the UK

The evolution of cataract surgery has changed significantly over the years. It began with simply opening a large wound to remove the cataract, and then closing the hole leaving a void where the natural lens was. The only way a patient could then see was with the aid of very thick post surgical eye glasses. Eventually, contact lenses were developed that would correct the high power required to permit these folks to see well after surgery.

With the invention of the post cataract implant, these thick eye glasses and contact lenses became obsolete. Intraocular implants were initially developed with the goal of correcting distance vision, but still required eyeglasses to permit near vision. As time passed, an implant was needed that would permit both distance and near vision without the need for reading glasses. The first multi focal implant attempts were very poor, and were quickly discarded as useless appliances.

With almost 3 million cataract surgeries being performed annually, and that number expected to double in the next 5-10 years, better alternatives needed to be introduced. A very promising implant that permits both distance and near vision is the Crystalens by Bausch and Lomb. Unlike standard multifocal implants, the Crystalens is an accommodating lens that changes focus as the individual needs to see up close, or far away. It works on the premise that best simulates the natural lens’ ability to accommodate when reading is attempted. That is to say, the lens flexes forward when reading, and backward when viewing in the distance. This implant does however have its limitations. Most surgeons are happy when the implant achieves 20/30 in the distance, and some clarity at near.

This ability for the Crystalens to change focus is accomplished with the aid of the eye’s cilliary body; which pulled on the eye’s natural lens prior to its extraction resulting in its change in thickness. The cilliary body muscle continues to function throughout life and has even demonstrated greater contractile force after cataract surgery. The Crystalens is attached surgically to this muscle to assist in its function.

As this muscle contracts and rotates, the implant flexes and it alters the anterior chamber depth which results in the internal gel of the eye (vitreous) moving forward. Current research has shown that a 1 mm anterior movement will result in an increase of 1.3 diopters in accommodative ability. The Crystalens implant has hinges which allow the implant greater flexibility to move for accommodation.

The Crystalens AT- 45 had a 4.5 mm optic zone, while the Crystalens 5.0 has a 5 mm optic zone. These implants do work quite well, but still received patient complaints of poor near and night vision. The latest development is the Crystalens HD which supports a 5.0 OZ and increases the center thickness to 1.5 mm in the central zone of the lens. This increase in thickness permits a greater arching of the lens and thus better near focusing. The results have been outstanding according to Dr Thierry Hufnagel, a New York eye surgeon at the Stahl Eye Center. This increase in accommodative arching appears to be the answer to better near vision with these post cataract patients.

The FDA’s trial of this lens implant has demonstrated at least 2.OO diopters of accommodation in most patients (enough to read at arm’s length), and as much as 4.00 diopters of accommodation in some of these patients. An additional benefit of this new lens is a decrease in poor night vision as well.