Cataracts

[Intolerant in NJ]

Sorry your experience hasn’t been good - I had one cataract replaced on 2012, the other done last June - very happy with the results - my understanding is that replacement lenses are usually calibrated so that one is focused for moderate distance, the other for close up vision - my first was done for distance, and I was concerned about losing the near focus before the second operation to the extent that I called the physician the week before to discuss what he had in mind - told me “we’re going to make you mildly near-sighted so you can shave and do other up-close kinds of thing without trouble” - that’s pretty much the way it’s turned out, so well in fact that I frequently don’t put my contact lenses (which I have to wear for a corneal condition) in until noon or later many days unless I’m going to be out driving earlier - I would recommend anyone contemplating the operation have a good talk with the doctor before hand to let him/her know what you want and what to expect.....

[Intolerant in NJ]

PS - one thing docs don’t usually mention about the surgery and should is that sometimes afterwards the tissue holding the replacement lens in place starts to become cloudy and you can almost be back to the same vision problem you had before the cataract was removed - this new difficulty is easily cured with laser treatment in about fifteen minutes - but some doctors don’t like to do it until the problem becomes bad because there is a slight risk of retinal detachment later in life after the use of the laser - my wife developed it in one of her eyes several years ago and has already had it corrected - I’ve got it going on in the eye I had done three years ago and will probably have the laser done in another year or two - just something else to consider.....

[Paal Gulli]

You are scapegoating the cataract surgery for your own failure to be actively engaged in your health care decisions. That you are unhappy with the outcome is the result of the choices that you made (or let the doctor make for you, which yet again was your decision) regarding which synthetic intraocular lenses were used to replace your own clouded lenses and should not be taken (or even offered) as a blanket condemnation of the procedure itself. There is more than adequate authoritative information on the subject of cataract surgery available in the Internet that, even if you weren’t able to formulate your own decisions from it, you at least should have been able to arm yourself with sufficient “intelligent” questions to ask of the surgeon that his answers would have provided your the facts necessary to make decisions to better assure a more acceptable outcome.

Doctors are just hired help. They’re not infallible and they aren’t magicians. They don’t even get factory training. And I have fired more than one because their objectives and mine were incompatible. I wouldn’t let my barber cut my hair just anyway he pleases, so why in heavens name would I let a doctor cut on my eyes without first making a best-faith effort to educate myself in the where-fors and how-comes of what he was proposing to do?

[OwenKellogg]

Researching cataract treatments, I found your post about cod liver oil... Are you still recommending this treatment? It sounds much better than surgery.