What you need to know about cataract surgery
With age, each person’s crystalline lens of the eye begins to become cloudy. When it becomes cloudy, a person begins to see everything, as if in a fog, and then stops seeing at all. This is the cataract. Most often, it begins to make itself felt at the age of 50-55 years, and by 70, vision can deteriorate completely. And in the case of cataracts, vision can be restored only with the help of an operation – ultrasonic phacoemulsification with implantation of an intraocular lens (IOL): through a micro-incision of 2 mm, which is subsequently self-sealing, with the help of ultrasound, the clouded crystalline lens is carefully crushed to an emulsion state and removed from the eye through a miniature tube.
In place of the crystalline lens, its soft artificial analogue is placed – a flexible, folded into a “tube” IOL with shape memory: it independently unfolds inside the eye and is securely fixed. The patient does not experience any pain during the operation. Anesthesia is local and fearless – drops in the eyes. After them, the eye loses sensitivity for about 20 minutes, and the patient is conscious all the time and can talk to the doctor.
Cataract surgery in the medical world is considered one of the most rewarding: the patient’s vision often begins to recover already on the operating table, he is overwhelmed by emotions, he is happy, and seeing this reaction, Ophthalmological surgeons themselves are charged with positive, receiving enormous satisfaction from the results of their work.
The only thing that overshadows the joy of patients is the high price of the operation. But in principle, it is impossible to reduce its cost, with all the desire of the clinic, since most of the cost of phacoemulsification is the cost of the IOL itself.
Modern intraocular lenses are a high-tech product! Can you imagine what space technologies need to be used in order for a piece of soft acrylic to start working in the eye in the same way as its own crystalline lens, and at the same time it will serve a person all his life!? Recreating all those unique functions that the crystalline lens performed in a piece of something artificial is not just difficult, it is on the verge of fantasy! And if relatively recently there was only one type of IOL that provided good vision only at a distance or only near, then today there are already universal intraocular lenses that are as close as possible to natural vision. Naturally, even an ordinary monofocal IOL manufactured by reputable American and Swiss companies is quite expensive, not to mention premium multifocal models… It is possible to reduce the cost of phacoemulsification only in one case – by using a cheap IOL, but then the operation generally loses all meaning! Judge for yourself: what is the reason to do a high-tech operation to put a low-quality IOL?! This is the so-called false “savings” that clinics that value their reputation cannot afford. After all, an operation is a responsible event, if you do it, then once and for all.
It’s the eyes! Therefore, in reputable clinics, such as the Ophthalmological Laser Center, they work only with branded IOLs, and the patient can verify this by reading the documents: the manufacturer supplies each IOL with a passport, which indicates its serial number and all parameters.
The success of the operation is directly related to the experience of the surgeon and the level of equipment: only expensive high-tech equipment in the hands of an experienced surgeon gives good results. And now you don’t have to go abroad to get world-class Ophthalmological medical care: Kyrgyzstan has an eye clinic that is equal in technical equipment to world clinics – this is the “Ophthalmological Laser Center”! All operating and diagnostic equipment in it is from the world leader and the “freshest”, that is, the latest generation of ultrasonic phacoemulsifiers CENTURION® Vision System (Alcon, USA), operating Ophthalmological microscopes LuxOR™ LX3 (USA), diagnostic lasers Oculyzer II and Topolyzer VARIO (WaveLight AG, Germany), as well as surgical lasers Topo-LASIK-SBK (Contoura™ Vision). Even not all ophthalmological clinics in Turkey and India, which are favorite destinations for medical tourism for Kyrgyzstanis, have equipment of this level. Meanwhile, the cost of treatment in these countries is higher. Such equipment is used in leading clinics in Western Europe and the USA, and in our country the only clinic that has them is the Ophthalmological Laser Center. He has no analogues in Kyrgyzstan in terms of the professional level of ophthalmologists: world-famous doctors.
Another very important thing to know about cataract surgery: the sooner the better!
Do not delay the operation! It used to be, before the advent of phacoemulsification, it was necessary to wait for the maturation of the cataract in order to remove it: the classic operation involved making a large incision in half of the eye, through which the cloudy crystalline lens was removed in its entirety. And people for decades walked in the fog, with a veil of cataracts in their eyes, bringing themselves almost to complete blindness, and ended up with surgeons when the cataract was already complicated by glaucoma, at an advanced age, when any operation is already a trial for the body …
Now in all civilized countries of the world the question of the operation is raised already with a decrease in visual acuity of up to 30%, and, probably, largely due to this, the majority of tourists in the world are pensioners!
Don’t let a cataract blind you, don’t put off surgery!
MAKE THE SCALES OF CATARACTS FALL FROM YOUR EYES!
