July 2021 - Armadale Eye Clinic

What to Expect After Cataract Surgery: Your Vision

Once you’ve had your cataracts removed, the world is going to look a little different. While you shouldn’t expect your vision to be crystal clear immediately after cataract surgery, you may already feel your vision is improved, particularly if your cataracts were advanced.

You’re also likely to experience other immediate changes to your sight. Because age-related cataracts are often a brownish-yellow colour, they filter out certain wavelengths of the spectrum and can cause colours to appear duller. As cataracts tend to progress very slowly, you may have been unaware of this change in your colour perception. However, once they’ve been removed through cataract surgery, you may find that colours are much brighter and more vibrant.

The removal of your cataracts may cause you some glare sensitivity in the short term, also known as photophobia. Now that the opacity in your lens has been removed with cataract surgery, more light can enter your eye. This glare sensitivity will resolve over the following weeks to months as your eyes readjust. In the meantime, some activities like looking at a bright screen or encountering sunlight reflecting off the road may be uncomfortable. It is not uncommon for cataract surgery to induce some degree of dry eye, which can also contribute to glare sensitivity. If this is the case for you, wear sunglasses in glary or dazzling conditions and speak to your eye surgeon about whether lubricant eye drops may be appropriate for managing your dry eye. Like glare sensitivity, dry eye as a side effect of cataract surgery tends to self-resolve over several months.

aftercare what to expect after cataract surgery melbourne

It’s important to understand that if you have limited vision as a result of other eye conditions, having cataract surgery won’t restore this vision loss. These include decreased vision from diseases such as retinal detachment, corneal scarring, or age-related macular degeneration. Your eye specialist will have conducted a thorough eye exam prior to performing surgery and so will have likely mentioned this when explaining what to expect after cataract surgery.

Your eye will take some time to heal from the procedure. Though the exact length of time will vary from individual to individual, many people find their vision has stabilised around 4-6 weeks after the operation. During this time, you won’t be able to wear your usual glasses or contact lenses as your prescription will have been altered by the procedure. Once your vision is stable your cataract surgeon will advise you when you can see your optometrist for a prescription update.

What to Expect After Cataract Surgery: Post-Operation Instructions

Your cataract surgeon will provide you with a guide of post-op instructions. It’s important to follow these to optimise your recovery process and minimise your risk of complications, such as a damaging eye infection.

The exact advice may vary depending on your specialist and your specific situation, but in general, most cataract surgeons will recommend:

Resting and avoiding strenuous activity for a few weeks. This includes lifting or moving heavy objects, participating in sports, and even vigorous housework like mopping.

Wearing your eye shield. Your surgeon may recommend you keep the shield on for the first 24 hours after your cataract surgery and then only overnight for about a week. This is to physically protect your eye from accidents like eye rubbing during sleep.

Using your prescription eye drops. You’ll be given a script for two or three bottles of medications, usually an antibiotic and one or two anti-inflammatory drops. It’s important to instil these as instructed and to complete the full course of eye drops even if your eyes feel better.

Keeping the eye clean. Try to avoid any unsterile water near the eye, including swimming pools, saunas, and at the beach. You can still bathe but you may choose to gently clean your face with a damp washcloth instead of under the shower. Soaps, shampoos, makeup, and any other similar products should be kept away from the eye area.

Avoiding dirty and dusty environments. It’s best to try and keep any foreign particles from getting lodged in the eye while it’s still healing. This includes taking a break from gardening or even housework that may send up dust into the air.

Although complications after cataract surgery are not common, they can happen. If you experience increased redness or pain in your eye, if your vision is deteriorating rather than improving, or if you see any sudden flashing lines or floating specks or lines, get in contact with your eye specialist immediately.

Note: Any surgical or invasive procedure carries risks. Before proceeding, you should seek a second opinion from an appropriately qualified health practitioner.

If you’re one of the thousands of Australians who are booked in to undergo cataract surgery every year, your ophthalmologist or optometrist has probably already answered your question about “how is cataract surgery done”. Even if you’ve not yet reached that point where you need to think about cataract surgery for yourself, you most likely know someone who does or who has already had it done. If you’d like to know how is cataract surgery done in greater detail, keep reading.

Is it Time for Cataract Surgery?

One of the most common questions preceding how is cataract surgery done is whether you even need to have cataract surgery right now.

Your optometrist or ophthalmologist will be the best person to discuss this with, as each individual’s case is a little different and it’s important to know your eye history and the current state of your vision when deciding. There are some factors to take into consideration but ultimately, you are the one who decides whether you’re ready to undergo an eye operation or not.

The main factor to think about is whether your current vision is adequate for your needs. Different people will have different expectations and demands of their vision. This can depend on your work and your hobbies. For example, if you’re a truck driver who often does long journeys overnight, you may feel the effects of a developing cataract much earlier than someone who works on a computer during the day, even if objectively your cataracts are similar. Vocation and hobbies aside, some people are also simply more sensitive to changes to their vision, or less tolerant of blur compared to others. This can mean an individual with only a mild cataract may still be significantly bothered by the deterioration of their vision, enough to want to seek cataract surgery at this stage.

Another factor your eye care professional will take into account is the overall health of your eyes. There are few circumstances where delaying cataract surgery may result in more serious damage to your eye health, however, one such situation is if the drainage of fluid from your eye is compromised. Angle-closure glaucoma results in increased eye pressure, which can cause permanent vision loss.

If you are at risk of this eye condition, your eye care provider may recommend you have cataract surgery sooner rather than later to ameliorate this risk, even if you’re still happy with your overall vision.

How is Cataract Surgery Done?

It is comforting to know that cataract surgery is one of the most commonly performed surgical procedures in the developed world. Although the ultimate success of your operation depends on the skill of your eye surgeon, cataract surgery is generally associated with low rates of complications and high levels of success.

After your pre-operation examination and consult, if you and your ophthalmologist have decided it’s time to remove your cataracts, you will be organised an appointment in the operating theatre. On the day, you will need to bring someone to drive you home.

Cataract surgery is a day procedure performed under local anaesthetic. Your eye will be numbed with either an injection around the eye or with topical eye drops. Typically, eye surgeons prefer to operate on one eye at a time, but in special circumstances, you may have both cataracts removed at the same time.

Once you’re comfortable, the surgeon will ask you to fixate on a target overhead to help keep your eye steady. There will be an instrument known as a speculum to help keep your eyelids open during the procedure as you may reflexively feel like blinking even though the eyeball itself is anaesthetised. You will also be given some dilating eye drops to widen the pupil so the cataract behind it is more easily accessed.

There are two techniques of cataract surgery. Your eye surgeon may prefer one over the other for all patients or may switch between the two depending on the specific case. Conventional cataract surgery is known as phacoemulsification while a newer method utilises laser technology, called femtosecond laser-assisted cataract surgery (FLACS). During FLACS, almost all steps of the cataract extraction procedure may be performed with the femtosecond laser rather than a handheld tool as in conventional phacoemulsification.

The first step is to create an incision in the cornea, the clear front surface of the eye. This makes an opening for other tools to get to the cataract further inside the eyeball. From here, the membrane capsule that holds the cataract must be gently torn open, a step known as capsulorhexis. Before the cataract can be removed from the eye, it must be broken into fragments small enough to be suctioned out. In FLACS, the femtosecond laser is used to soften the cataract before an ultrasound probe breaks it into pieces; in conventional cataract surgery, only the probe is used for this step. Once the cataract is entirely removed, the surgeon will insert an intraocular lens implant into the membrane capsule and the corneal incision allowed to self-seal.

Your eye will continue healing over the following 4 to 6 weeks. During that time, you will have a few review appointments with your eye care professional to ensure your vision is stabilising as expected.

Call us now on (03) 9070 5753 for a consultation.

Note: Any surgical or invasive procedure carries risks. Before proceeding, you should seek a second opinion from an appropriately qualified health practitioner.

What To Expect After Cataract Surgery? Everything You Need To Know

What to Expect After Cataract Surgery: Your Vision

What to Expect After Cataract Surgery: Post-Operation Instructions

How is Cataract Surgery Done? Factors That Need To Consider

Is it Time for Cataract Surgery?

How is Cataract Surgery Done?