Cataracts Treatment

Question by Tim: Tell me more about secondary cataract, membrane and laser?

Best answer:

Answer by princeidoc
a lot of people call this an “after-cataract” or say that their cataract “came back”. neither is particularly accurate IMO.

i call this “posterior iol opacification” (iol = intraocular lens), and its usually caused by your body growing new fibers and/or cells onto the backside of your artificial intraocular lens that was implanted during your cataract extraction procedure.

the “fix” is yag laser capsulotomy, an outpatient laser procedure that burns the cells/fibers off, or at least burns a hole in them. fast, easy, very successful, very low risk. something like 35% of all cataract extraction surgeries need this extra procedure later, so its really common.

the fact that “after cataracts” are removed with laser causes much confusion among patients. they think that you can have “laser” to remove cataracts, which is untrue. cataract extraction surgery is a “real” surgery with a scalpel, not a laser procedure. but removal of posterior iol opacities in a person who has already had cataract extraction is done with a yag laser as described above….

Give your answer to this question below!

This entry was posted on Friday, September 3rd, 2010 at 5:26 am and is filed under cataract treatment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.