Cataract Surgery Q&A

What are Cataracts?

A cataract is a painless clouding of the human eye lens. It causes vision to be blurred as if looking through a dirty camera lens. As the cloudiness progresses, vision becomes increasingly blurred. The cataract formation interferes with the passage of light into the retina, which is located at the back of the eye. The retina is responsible for converting light into energy signals that are sent to the brain. Cataracts can cause a number of visual symptoms. These include:

• Glare from the sun, headlights, and lamps
• Dimming of vision requiring more light to see
• Dulling of color vision, making it difficult to discern between black and navy, for example
• Hazy, blurry or unclear vision
• Difficulty reading small print
• A shadow imaging in one eye
• Frequently changing glasses prescriptions or glasses that don't seem to work.

What Causes Cataracts?

A cataract has many causes. These include; aging, genetics, poor diet, injury, ultraviolet exposure (such as with sunbathing), smoking, diseases such as diabetes, and the use of certain medications (like prednisone and others). Cataracts can occur at any age, from birth to later years.

When Should Cataracts be Removed?

Cataract surgery is performed when vision becomes affected. Years ago people needed to wait until their cataracts became hardened or “ripe” before surgery could be performed. But due to surgical advances, in the 21st Century, that’s no longer the case.

Sometimes, cataracts grow so slowly that people are unaware they’ve lost vision. In our office, we show patients live video imaging of a cataract to help them better understand, and actually see, what is occurring in the eye and how vision is affected.

What is Lifestyle Cataract Surgery?

Lifestyle cataract surgery offers patients the potential for an overall vision that is superior to what can be achieved with traditional cataract surgery. In addition to removing cataracts, lifestyle cataract surgery can simultaneously correct a patient’s other vision issues, such as: astigmatism, near-sightedness, and far-sightedness. With this procedure, once cataracts are removed, our highly-skilled physicians can implant the appropriate lens (PanOptix, Symfony, Crystalens, Tecnis, Trulign and others) that can lessen, or even, eliminate a patient dependence on glasses. After lifestyle cataract surgery, many of our patients no longer require glasses or contacts for most activities. Smaller print reading may improve with glasses especially in dimmer lights.

To insure that patients get the best results from lifestyle cataract surgery, it is essential to select a practice with top-notch expertise and equipment. Specifically, patients should look for:

• An experienced doctor with outstanding surgical skill. Dr. Hedaya not only taught cataract surgery at New York University Medical Center, but also has achieved extremely successful results for thousands of patients over the past thirty years.
• State-of-the-art technologies are also key, including the femtosecond laser to enhance reproducibility of the procedure. We have pioneered the use of LenSx femtosecond laser in our cataract surgery.
• An office equipped with the most advanced diagnostic equipment and software to enhance the predictability of post-operative results. Patients who visit InVision are extremely satisfied with our thorough evaluation and state-of-the-art technology.

• In-office laser vision correction capability is also important, as a small percent of patients may require a complimentary laser touch up procedure following cataract surgery, to obtain their best possible vision.
• A great surgical facility to ensure the best possible outcomes. We use Seashore Surgical Institute for our procedures. Seashore is certified by the Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care and has over a 95% patient satisfaction rating.

If you are considering cataract surgery, make your next step a visit our office. It will be well worth your while, and you will learn much about the uniqueness of your eyes.

Why Have Dr Hedaya Perform Your Cataract Surgery?

Dr. Hedaya has been performing cataract surgery for over three decades. He served as a Clinical Instructor of cataract surgery at the New York University Medical Center. With nearly 20,000 procedures done to date, he is extremely adept at cataract surgery. Records kept at the Seashore Surgical institute over the past 15 years attest to him having an extremely low rate of complications.

We have a fabulous computer generated image program to help you understand your eyes. The level of testing we perform pre-operatively is comforting to both surgeon and patients. Furthermore at InVision we have invested in extraordinary technologies including advanced computer measurements using the Zeiss IOL Master 700, Zeiss Callisto markerless tracking, the Marco OPD3, the Lensx Femtosecond Laser for laser cataract surgery and others. Our passion is to achieve the most accurate post operative results possible. Dr. Hedaya also has experience in selecting the best artificial lens implant or combination of implants to maximize the range of your vision. Finally we bring added value to your surgery by being one of the very few practices who offers free in office laser vision correction adjustments for our lifestyle cataract surgery patients. We can fine tune the vision in the small number of cases that may warrant it using the WaveLight Allegretto laser from Germany. Treatments average under 3 seconds.

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