Art master Leonardo da Vinci said, “The eyes are the windows to the soul.” The eyes are the most important sensory organ for human beings to obtain and verify external information. According to scientists’ analysis, more than 90% of the external information people obtain comes from vision, so the eyes are the sensory organs that work the busiest and provide the most information in the human body. With the aging of our population, the number of cataracts is increasing and cataracts have become the primary cause of blindness in China, accounting for about half of the total number of blindness. Cataract is fundamentally a clouding of the lens in the eye. The most obvious symptom of cataract is painless vision loss, which seriously affects the quality of life of patients and causes more pain and mental stress than any disability. Fortunately, with the advancement of medical technology, many breakthroughs have been made in the treatment of cataracts, and the blindness caused by cataracts has become a curable blindness. Modern surgical treatment of cataracts has shifted from simple blindness prevention to the level of constantly improving the visual quality and quality of life of the elderly. However, in reality, many people still have many outdated perceptions and misconceptions about cataract treatment.
Myth #1: You can only have surgery when you can’t see.
Some people think that surgery can only be done when they are completely blind, i.e. when the cataract is mature, which is obviously a misconception. Mature or overripe cataracts will only increase the difficulty of surgery and cause some eye complications, which will affect the effect of surgery in mild cases and cause irreversible blindness such as glaucoma and uveitis in severe cases, causing great pain to patients. As long as it affects work, study and life (visual acuity below 0.5), surgery can be considered.
Myth 2: Overly believe that drug treatment is effective.
Although many kinds of anti-cataract drugs are still widely used in clinical practice all over the world, their efficacy is not very precise. Surgery for cataracts is currently the only recognized effective treatment, and the use of medication will only delay the best time for treatment. It is recommended that you listen to your doctor and seek medical consultation and early surgical treatment once the vision loss is serious so as not to delay the condition.
Myth 3: The elderly are too old to have surgery.
Some people think that they are too old to suffer from the pain of surgery or that surgery is too dangerous to be performed. In fact, the current advanced cataract surgery has basically broken through the age restriction, from 100-year-old people to children as young as 3 months old, all can be operated and have successful experience. At present, advanced cataract surgery is basically painless, and most patients can tolerate the surgery. Therefore, there is no need to let the elderly spend their days in the dark, which not only deprives them of quality of life in their later years but also brings serious burden to their families and society. At present, the highest age of patients operated in our hospital is 99 years old, and the quality of life of patients after surgery has been radically improved.
Myth 4: You cannot have surgery if you have diabetes, hypertension, coronary heart disease and other systemic diseases.
Some elderly people with diabetes, hypertension, heart disease and other diseases can fully tolerate surgery as long as their blood sugar, blood pressure and heart function are controlled within a relatively normal range through medical treatment. At present, our hospital carries out cataract ultrasound emulsification, which is performed through small incisions in the transparent cornea after cataract ultrasound emulsification and implantation of collapsible IOLs, resulting in short operation time and little pain for patients.
Myth 5: Vision can definitely be improved after cataract surgery.
If the vision does not improve after surgery, the surgery is a failure. We say that the eye is like a precision camera, and cataract is like a problem with the lens of the camera, which can be replaced through surgery. But a camera can take clear pictures not only with the lens but also with the film and so on. In addition to cataract, some elderly people also have macular degeneration or other fundus diseases, which is like a problem with the film of a camera. For these patients, even if they have cataract surgery (lens replacement), their vision may not necessarily improve after surgery because of the problems in the fundus (film problems). However, it is also impossible to make correct diagnosis and timely and effective treatment for some patients with fundus disease without treating cataracts.
Myth 6: Cataracts will grow again after cataract surgery.
After examination, it is found that the postoperative clouding of the capsule lining the IOL affects the vision. It is easy to deal with this problem, as a laser can be used to make a small hole in the posterior capsule, which is simple, quick and painless, and will improve vision immediately without the need for reoperation.
Our ophthalmology department is the designated department of the Lions Clubs International Cataract Initiative with strong technical strength. In 2002, we also went to Inner Mongolia on behalf of Beijing Health Bureau and Disabled Persons’ Federation to carry out cataract surgery to help the poor, which was widely reported by CCTV, Beijing TV, Health News and other major media. Over the years, the ophthalmology department has been adhering to the style of truth-seeking and pragmatic, the spirit of selfless dedication, striving for technical excellence, constantly expanding the scope of business, focusing on the precise combination of clinical work and scientific research, successively undertaking 8 projects above the bureau level, such as the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the State Grid Corporation, Beijing Shoufa Fund, etc., and winning the second prize for scientific and technological progress at the bureau level once, and carrying out and reporting for the first time in China We also reported the application of “blue light filtering technology” in ocular surface diseases for the first time in China. With the improvement of the hospital’s medical environment, all the ophthalmology staff will provide better and more efficient services for the majority of patients and do their best to protect the “windows” of our human hearts.