Premium Cataract Surgery

What is a cataract?

We are all born with a natural clear lens inside our eyes.  Usually starting in our 40’s and 50’s, this lens can gradually grow cloudy as we age and eventually degrade the quality of our vision.  If severe enough, this progressive cloudiness may even impact our activities of daily living.  In medical terms, the lens becomes a cataract when it begins to opacify, and the different patterns of opacification determines the type of cataract.  Cataracts naturally grow more opaque and become denser as a person ages, which then degrades vision further.  Looking through visually significant cataracts is much like looking through a pair of dirty glasses.  However, unlike dirty glasses which can be cleaned with a lens cloth, cataracts cannot be cleaned through conventional ways due to its internal location inside the eye.  At some point in a cataract’s maturation, your eye doctor may recommend cataract surgery to remove the cataract and improve the quality of vision.  Fortunately for patients, the techniques of cataract surgery have evolved and expanded in recent years and offer patients more choices than ever before.

What is Cataract Surgery?

At Eversight Eye Center, we offer both traditional cataract extraction with intraocular lens implantation and premium cataract surgeries.  Both types of surgeries provide excellent results in restoring patients’ vision and have benefited from a long history of refinements in surgical techniques, medical devices, and implants.  Traditional Cataract Extraction with Lens Implant is a tried and true procedure in which the cataract is removed using ultrasound energy to break up and aspirate the lens.  An artificial lens implant is then inserted into the eye to replace the extracted natural lens and allows light to focus onto the back of the eye (the retina), resulting in clear vision.  The procedure is usually covered by patients’ insurances and provides excellent visual outcomes.  Premium Cataract Surgery includes the traditional cataract extraction paid by most insurances but enhances it with special technologies and techniques that either decrease the patients’ dependence on eyeglasses or make the surgery more precise and gentler on the eye.  For example, special surgical techniques or premium lens implants can correct for astigmatism and/or presbyopia (the loss of the eye’s ability to focus clearly on near objects due to aging) and may decrease the patients’ dependence on eyeglasses.  These options may include Toric, Multifocal, or Extended Depth of Focus lens implants, and corneal limbal relaxing incisions.  Another option called Laser-Assisted Cataract Extraction uses computer-guided femtosecond lasers to allow the surgeon to have a softer touch on the eye.  The lasers pretreat the cataract to soften it and reduces the energy used inside the eye while the surgeon is extracting the cataract.  It also allows for “bladeless cataract surgery” since the laser precisely creates all the required incisions.  Less energy and more precision means a gentler technique with reduced collateral damage of the surrounding ocular tissues and less complications.  These new technologies give the patients more choice and can bring new life to aging eyes by expanding their range of vision while being gentler on the eye.  It can allow the patient to be independent from glasses.  Premium Cataract Surgery is not covered by insurances but patients may feel the benefits are well worth the extra cost.  Be sure to speak with our surgical staff to determine what is the right option for you.