1. Which cataracts can be considered for surgery?
All types of cataracts can be operated as long as they affect vision and life.
(1) immature cataract or mature cataract; (2) glaucomatous cataract or post-glaucoma cataract; (3) diabetic cataract; (4) medium and high myopic cataract; (5) traumatic cataract; (6) congenital cataract; (7) complication cataract caused by other reasons.
2. Many elderly people do not want to have cataract surgery, when is the right time to have cataract surgery?
Cataract is a common disease among the elderly, but many elderly people have been unwilling to have surgery after learning of the disease. “Some patients, because they are afraid of surgery, bought some commercially advertised drugs and used several courses of treatment according to the instructions, but they did not see any effect, but on the contrary, they could not see anything more, and finally had to come to the hospital for surgery. “
In the past, due to the limitation of medical technology, cataracts had to wait until they were completely “mature” and the affected eyes could not see before surgery, and patients had to endure the trouble and pain of low vision for a long time.
Nowadays, with the application and development of cataract ultrasonic emulsion aspiration combined with IOL implantation, the safety and effectiveness of cataract surgery have been greatly improved, and patients do not have to wait until they are completely blind before having surgery.
Cataract surgery is not complicated, and the entire procedure takes only a dozen or 20 minutes and is neither painful nor frightening. “We once operated on a 100-year-old man without any problems. Therefore, the elderly should first overcome their psychological fears, and secondly, if they have diseases such as diabetes and hypertension, they should first get their blood pressure and blood sugar under control, and then come back for surgery.
When exactly should I have surgery? For different patients, the sooner or later they receive the surgery will cause different results. Currently in developed countries patients receive surgery when their vision is 0.5 or higher. We generally consider patients with vision <0.3 with proper glasses to be ready for surgery. At present, the two main surgical methods are modern extracapsular extraction and ultrasound emulsification, the latter being the most advanced. The latter has small surgical incisions, no sutures, fast postoperative recovery, small astigmatism and few complications. 3.Is there an age limit for cataract surgery? As China enters an aging society, more and more elderly people need cataract surgery due to the improvement of living standards. There is no uniform age limit for cataract surgery. Some patients’ families think that it is too dangerous to operate on elderly people over 90 years old. In fact, some elderly people are in good health, with stable blood pressure and heart condition. Moreover, most cataract surgeries nowadays are performed with local anesthesia or spot anesthesia (surface anesthesia), which is very painless, so they can mostly tolerate the surgery. We once performed surgery for a 100-year-old man without any problems. Old painter Su Juxian lived to 114 years old and was 104 years old at the time of cataract surgery. Therefore, whether one can bear cataract surgery does not depend on age, but on the patient’s physical condition. 4. Is there any danger of not having surgery for severe cataracts? There is no doubt that surgery is the best way to treat cataracts, but it is not necessary to operate immediately after getting cataracts. This is a very wrong and dangerous view. These eye diseases mostly occur in the middle and late stages of cataract, such as expansion stage and overripe stage, which can not only cause blindness, but also sometimes can cause serious inflammation in the eye, resulting in eye atrophy. Some patients may have to have their eyeballs removed as a last resort due to chronic eye pain that is unbearable. Therefore, it reminds us that cataracts must be treated surgically when they reach a certain level.