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CURRENT CATARACT TECHNOLOGYYour cataract may need no treatment at all if the vision is only a little blurry. A change in your eyeglass prescription may improve vision for a while. There are no medications, eye drops, exercises or glasses that will cause cataracts to disappear once they have formed. When you are not able to see well enough to do the things you like to do, cataract surgery should be considered. Surgery is the only way to remove a cataract. Cataracts cannot be removed with a laser, only through a surgical incision. In cataract surgery, the cloudy lens is removed from the eye. In most cases, the focusing power of the natural lens is restored by replacing it with a permanent intraocular lens implant.
Cataract surgery is usually fast, comfortable, and quite successful. Surgery can and ususally is performed as outpatient surgery. Anesthesia consists of minimal sedation and a local block for comfort. The surgery usually takes less than 15 minutes. You return home in less than two hours total and may resume normal activity almost immediately. All surgical work is done through a self-sealing (sutures are not used) opening into the eye that is about the size of a pen tip. Cataracts are never removed with lasers. The cloudy lens is removed with an instrument that loosens the cloudy lens protein (emulsifies) and gently vacuums it out of the eye. The instrument is called a phacoemulsifier and is not a laser. In phacoemulsification, sound waves gently break up the cataract and it is removed from the eye. However, lasers are presently being developed to remove cataracts. Once the cloudy lens is removed, a lens implant is necessary to restore the focus of the eye. The lens implant is folded and inserted through the same tiny opening into the eye. The lens is placed through the pupil, behind the colored iris to replace the natural human lens. The lens is permanent and restores the focus of the eye. ________________________________________
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