Showing posts with label eye-care. Show all posts

Expectations of a Cataract Surgery Patient


Aging brings loss of vision due to loss of transparency in the crystalline lens of the eye and the condition is known as Cataract. No medicine can cure it, so surgery to remove the opaque lens and replace it with an artificial lens is the only remedy.

With the advent of microscopes and phaco machines, cataract surgery has become a miracle bringing great visual results.

But surgery has its own challenges. Here, we as surgeons are afraid of infection leading to endophthalmitis and the second is intraoperative drownings of the crystalline lens in the vitreous chamber. Either of the two complications can lead to visual damage and phthisis - softening of the eyeball to the shrunken small eye. So though results are the best most of the time, it cannot be so each and every time and complications can occur.


What are the expectations of a cataract patient going for surgery?

Though this may sound to be a simple question, the answer is a bit complicated. I will start from the expectations. one by one from the maximum to the minimum.

  1. I should have the best possible visual outcome at the earliest without any pain, redness, or swelling.
  2. I will tolerate some pain and redness, but I should gain vision to some extent if not the best.
  3. Cosmetic: By chance, if something goes wrong during surgery for reasons beyond the control of the surgeon despite the best care, my eyeball should remain in shape and I should not have a deep shrunken eye.
  4. Painful blind eye: At least, I should not have an eye causing constant trouble like pain, watering, and irritation. I may tolerate small eyes (phthisis).
  5. Life-threatening complications: As time passes, I will accept ocular complications as my bad luck, but I should not die in the operation theatre due to a reaction to any injected drug or cardiac arrest. At least I should go home alive.

These are the thoughts I had myself while my cataract surgery was going on.

We, the eye surgeons operating thousands of patients during our lifetime and having complications at least a few times are not happy passing through such events. Being sensitive, we may become stressed and sometimes lose sleep for many nights.

Maybe we see this thought cycle of a patient and learn about the other side of the story - the patient.

Dr Bhaharchandra M. Desai
M.S (Oph)
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Our Old Age Home Stay Experience

We planned a week’s visit to an old-age home in Lonavala, in a group of ten from Bilimora between 7 and 14-Mar-2019. Dr. Pravin Gilitwala led the team and organised because he had been there numerous times. Dr. Bhavana Desai (my wife) and I were little uncertain about the venue and timetable there but agreed just to have a new experience altogether. To our surprise, everything turned out to be better than all we thought. We had a great time all in all!

Kapol Sanatorium, Lonavala

Just by the old Mumbai-Pune highway is situated this old-age home for fixed one week stay. Only old-age people above 60 years are invited to stay for a week starting every Thursday and ending the next Thursday, in a total number of hundred. There are AC and non-AC rooms available for fixed one week, at different rates. These are twin-sharing rooms charged at is Rs. 6,000 and Rs. 12,000 per week, based on individual preferences. The rooms are like single bedroom apartments with four beds, dining table and kitchen having LPG gas connection and utensils for cooking, serving and eating. The bathroom and lavatory were separate, with the well-set bathroom having hot-cold water and shower (and also the western type commode aptly preferred by the elderly). The television or music systems were purposefully excluded. There is an intercom telephone connecting every room to the office, room service and other rooms. The housekeeping staff clean the room and utensils and also wash clothes every day.
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Blindness - All A Seeing Person Must Know

Blindness is a state of being sightless or say an inability to see. World Health Organization - WHO (1972) describes blindness as the inability to count fingers at the distance of 3 meters in day-light after best possible spectacle correction in the better eye OR visual field less than 10° around the centre of fixation.

Blindness is of three TYPES:
  1. Loss of visual acuity.
  2. Colour blindness: Inability to recognize colours, and
  3. Night blindness: Night vision is damaged.
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Medical Practice, at 60

I was one of the brightest of students during my academic career. I respected my teachers and I was their favourite student. I have studied up to 28 years of age to pass M.S. in Ophthalmology and practised for 32 years. I know practising in a small village-like town does bring more practice and less money. I was the only eye specialist available serving needy poor of the area for more than two decades
.

I have worked as honorary visiting eye-surgeon at Eye camps organized at Adivasi (tribal) and poor areas of Vansda, Ahwa, Dharampur for a long time - at Gram Seva Trust, Kharel and Bodhi Gaya (Bihar) eye-camps for more than five years. I am working at Rotary Eye Hospital, Chikhali till today in addition to my private practice.
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Computer and Eye

Use of computer is unavoidable in day to day life of an individual dealing with IT industry and such other professions. It is not a safe thing to go using computer carelessly. Then What? The answer to such questions follows. Our science tells following 10 rules to be taken care of.
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[Video] What is a cataract? An overview.


Also read: Articles on Eye and Eye-care.
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