Dr. Rasheena Bansal

Planning for a cataract surgery in the family. Here are the must know and eye opening facts.

Common public is often sensitized by marketing executives to go for expensive lenses in hospitals without thinking whether patients actually needs them or not as the lens mrp is 2 to 10 times the actual cost price or patient is implanted a extremely low cost lens usually in name of free surgery in charitable hospital.

Lens is major factor which determines the cost and quality of cataract surgery and its price varies from Rs. 500 to Rs. 50000.

Another important factor is the expertise and experience of surgeon which is a major determinant of surgical outcome.

Charitable surgery by charitable hospital exists only where external implants are put in patients like eye, orthopedics etc and not in neurosurgery, ent, general surgery, plastic surgery where mostly removal of the diseased part is done or modification of the surgical site is done. Charitable surgery by eye hospital is supported by vision 2020 of who.

The chances of eye infection increases if your surgery is listed lower down as compared to the first surgery on that day.

Patients are advised to have their surgery listed as first or second case. With improving standards of ot and sterilization of instruments, the infection rates have decreased drastically but why take a chance.

Once there is an eye infection following cataract surgery, there is little hope of return of vision.

Patient is advised to choose his doctor and institution or hospital where he is getting the surgery done based on its doctor's past reputation and the reputation of institution and should not get lured by free surgery camps and unless he can't afford to pay, since infection following cataract surgery needs at least 48 hours to manifest and its risk is extremely high in eye camps despite taking various measures due to unavoidable circumstances. Its your eyes after all!

Now patient should be aware of various types of iol (intraocular lenses) and its benefit over other lenses.

Cataract is also called'motiyabin" in hindi. Phacoemusification also called phaco is the most common procedure done for its removal.

Here is a complete summary of type of lens implanted in cataract surgery and it's pros and cons.

Monofocal lens- here you will need glasses to look at the near objects after cataract surgery.

Accommodating monofocal lenses (crysta lens)-a newer option, accommodating monofocal lenses, can shift from near to far vision in response to movements of the ciliary muscles in your eye, similar to the natural lens in a younger eye. These lenses offer excellent distance and middle vision, but they aren't as reliable for near vision. Eye exercises can help you get used to them, but about half of people who receive them still end up needing reading glasses.

Toric lenses-these specialized monofocal lenses are designed for people with astigmatism. Toric lenses offer focused vision at a single distance and correct your astigmatism, so you might not need distance glasses after surgery.

Multifocal lenses-like the bifocal or progressive lenses used in glasses, multifocal lenses have different areas designed for distance, intermediate, and near vision. The brain and eye figure out which part of the lens to use. The main drawback of multifocal lenses is they can distort bright light, creating more glare and halos at night.

Aspheric lens-designed to improve contrast sensitivity and visual clarity under certain circumstances.

Monovision-this implant technique uses a monofocal lens with a different power in each eye so that you don’t have to use glasses for most of your daily activities. Your dominant eye is generally set for distance, and the other eye is set for near. Many people successfully use monovision with contact lenses. Successful monovision requires cataract surgery to each eye.

One should remember that all that glitter is not gold in this commercialized world

Doctor has done 10000 phaco surgery and 50000 eye surgeries since 1986 and has pioneered phaco surgery in 1995 in bihar and jharkhand and was second person to do this surgery in whole of east india.

Consult online/book physical appointment/take a second opinion or get contact details on www.lybrate.com/arjunkumarsingh. Stay anywhere in india, get honest and unbiased advice from us.

Regards

Dr Arjun Kumar Singh, Patna

Email- drarjun53@gmail. Com