Monday, December 10, 2012

My first Cataract Surgery Is Done




Greetings again my dear friends and readers!

My first cataract surgery is done.  I’m a week post-op as of today and everything went fine.  There were no complications and my sight is already better.  I have the second one done next week.

The way the process goes is that the patient has to scrub their eyelids with a special pad every night and start adding medical eye drops to their eyes starting two days before surgery.  When the patient goes into surgery the staff places him or her under sedation and adds more drops to the eye, including those which will anesthetize the eye for the surgery.  The doctor then makes a tiny incision into the eye and breaks up and removes the affected lens with a special tool.  The doctor then replaces the lens with an artificial one.  Be advised that insurance generally will only cover the cheaper monofocal lens, so you would have to pay out of pocket for the multifocal ones.  It’s all over in a few minutes and I was in and out of the clinic in a little over an hour.

After the operation there’s no more scrubbing the eyelids as this can cause the incision to reopen with disastrous consequences.  The patient wears a guard over the eye the first day and then uses it for sleep and naps.  The drops continue afterwards, in my case for about six weeks.  One avoids lifting heavy things for at least the first week after and avoids bending over or any other activity which may increase the pressure in the eye.

It’s great to be getting it over with.  I’ll let you know how it works out when everything is done.


4 comments:

  1. What a blessing, I'm glad that it went well and is healing! Good luck and God bless

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  2. Thanks for sharing you experience with us. It is a critical but painless surgery. Get well soon.

    Hip Replacement

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  3. Congrats on your successful cataract surgery. It’s good to know that you didn’t encounter any problem during the procedure. I really hope that you’re happy with your “new” eyes! :) No more scrubbing the eyes! That must've been a relief on your part. It feels great to have a great vision again, right?

    Cami Hood

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    1. Thank you for the kind comment Cami.

      I did develop macular edema in both eyes post-surgery. That's why I've been inactive lately. Of course the treatment for that is...aggressive prednisolone and an anti-inflammatory, both by eye drops. However that seems to be resolving so we've started stepping the drops down. It is amazing that even eye drops with steroids in them can have tremendous effects on the system and require careful weaning which in my case is going to take months.

      But I do love the results. The colors pop now where they'd gotten kind of dull. I don't need the glasses other than for reading and looking at the monitor. It's taking some getting used to after a quarter of a century using glasses all the time. It's great!

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