CATARACTS AFTER RETINA DETACHMENT

Doctor Wallace says:
Dean was referred to me by his optometrist and presented a series of challenges. He was profoundly nearsighted and had suffered a complicated retinal detachment in his left eye in ’96. Risk of retinal detachment is significantly greater in patients that are very nearsighted. Fortunately, in Dean’s case, that problem was repaired by a superb retina specialist, and he recovered good correctable vision.

Dean had also received several preventative treatments to his retinas (both eyes) to hopefully reduce any future risk of detachment. As a consequence of this prior care and surgery, he had developed a cataract in the left eye, and had vision best correctable to only 20/80.

Dean clearly needed cataract surgery in the left eye. The good news here is that modern cataract surgery, combined with lens implantation, can reduce or eliminate any pre-existing prescription; even profound myopia as Dean had.

We performed cataract care for Dean’s left eye in May ’02, and he was so pleased with the result that he requested the same care for the right eye as soon as possible. We did surgery for the right eye a few weeks later.

I am glad we had this option to offer Dean. His high prescription, combined with his corneal thickness and curvature, would have caused me to conclude that he would not be a good candidate for LASIK.