Over 45 and considering LASIK, Lens replacement or Cataract surgery? ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW.

hi i'm dr shannon wong and this video is designed to help educate you on how we surgically correct vision for patients in their mid-40s and older we're going to discuss the top five procedures that we use to correct vision and help our patients see clearly without glasses or contacts or to see clearly with the least reliance on glasses the five procedures that we will discuss are lasik premium lens replacement premium cataract surgery astigmatism correcting cataract surgery and basic cataract surgery in the big picture the performance of our eyes changes over our lifetime in order to put everything into context let me explain how the eye works and how we can surgically improve and correct your vision the eye focuses like a camera the cornea and lens focus an image on the retina when we're young the lens is clear and flexible allowing us to focus effortlessly from far to near invariably as we age the lens inside our eye grows cloudy and loses flexibility as the lens undergoes these changes we lose our ability to focus from far to near and usually in our mid to late 40s will experience eye strain when reading and begin to use or need reading glasses or bifocals to focus from far to near this aging process of the eye is known as presbyopia and is one of the early symptoms in the process of developing a cataract with premium lens replacement we're correcting presbyopia and any associated significant nearsightedness farsightedness or astigmatism before the onset of visually significant cataracts by removing the aging natural lens inside the eye and replacing it with a premium lens implant to help reduce and possibly eliminate your reliance on glasses a cataract is a clouding of the eyes natural lens inside the eye located just behind the pupil visually significant cataracts which typically interfere with vision in your 60s and 70s can cause your vision to blur and your color perception to diminish left untreated your cataracts could continue to develop to the point of causing significantly blurred vision and an inability to perform tasks such as driving safely or reading accurately in order for patients with visually significant cataracts to see clearly again the cloudy natural lens eventually needs to be surgically removed and in its place an artificial intraocular lens or iol will need to be implanted so premium lens surgery is simply lens replacement surgery performed at a younger age before the onset of visually significant cataracts many patients in their 40s and older commonly associate lasik surgery as the solution to correct their misfocus though we perform all laser lasik and the results with lasik are outstanding lasik makes an individual seem normal for their age the best time to have lasik surgery is between the ages of 20 to 40. during this window of time lasik patients can have their vision corrected to see at all distances without glasses due to the normal aging process if a patient in their mid to late 40s undergoes lasik then they too will see normal for their age and therefore see clearly far away but require reading glasses to see the computer and to read up close we've found that premium lens replacement is the best surgical option to correct vision for patients in their mid-40s and older who want to have the ability to see far mid-range and near with the least reliance on glasses the advantages of premium lens replacement over lasik in patients in their mid-40s and older are number one more stable vision than lasik for the rest of your life number two the ability to see clearly near and far without glasses as you continue to age number three premium lens replacement patients will never develop cataracts later in life and therefore not need to undergo cataract surgery in the future with premium lens replacement using a premium presbyopia correcting lens implant most patients are able to see in the distance see the computer or mid-range and read up close with little if any dependence on glasses or contact lenses premium lens replacement surgery is not covered by medical or vision insurance and is considered elective surgery which the patient pays for out of pocket before surgery your procedure will be performed in our outpatient surgical center one hour before your surgery you will receive a valium pill to help you feel more relaxed your eye will be completely numbed with local anesthetic eye drops then a small incision is made to allow access to the lens next a circular opening is created in the capsular membrane that surrounds the natural lens to provide access to remove the lens then using an ultrasonic instrument the lens is gently broken apart and removed from the eye the intraocular lens that you choose is then inserted into the capsular membrane that once held your natural lens the incision is self-sealing and usually no sutures are required your surgeon may or may not choose to use a laser for certain parts of your premium lens replacement surgery whether a laser is used or not your visual outcome is the highest priority if the laser is critical to helping you see your best then your surgeon will use it if the laser does not help you achieve your best vision then your surgeon may choose to not use it so if you're between the age of 20 and 40 and want to correct your vision our procedure of choice is all laser lasik or what we call custom eye lasik and lasik is an exceptional procedure i performed more than 5 000 lasik procedures including lasik on my wife in 1997 one son in 2018 and another son in 2020 it's a great procedure for patients younger than 45 super safe very low risk and helps you see like a normal sided person with normal vision for their age now the most common procedure that we perform in 2021 for patients 45 and older is premium lens replacement or premium cataract surgery premium lens replacement and premium cataract surgery are basically the same procedure we remove the aging lens and replace it with a lens implant the lens implant corrects four types of misfocus presbyopia nearsightedness farsightedness and astigmatism the procedure is painless we use anesthetic eye drops and a valium or xanax pill to help you stay comfortable and relaxed there's no iv used you're awake during the surgery but you don't see anything scary basically you just see lights that are out of focus moving around during the procedure and these are the lights from our operating microscope there's no need for an iv because we don't use iv sedation we correct one eye on one day and the second eye on a separate day we do not do same-day premium lens replacement or cataract surgery to both eyes if a patient would benefit from surgery to both eyes we commonly correct one eye on one day the patient can see well within one day and then we can correct the second eye as soon as one week later what's the right time to have lens replacement or cataract surgery well there's two times for the younger crowd if you're over the age of 45 and want to optimize your vision to reduce or eliminate your reliance on glasses this would be the time that patients choose premium lens replacement on an elective basis about 50 percent of our surgical patients fall into this group secondly when you're 65 or older and are experiencing symptoms such as blurred vision with glasses inability to see the tv clearly difficulty reading or discerning fine details glare around oncoming headlights at night cloudy foggy fuzzy or filmy vision or problem seeing colors clearly in this group the lens inside your eye has become cloudy enough that it's not possible for you to see well enough to safely and accurately function in all situations due to the development of visually significant cataracts when you have these symptoms and have been examined by your eye doctor and diagnosed with visually significant cataracts you have three options you could leave the cataracts alone not have surgery and you'll continue to see blurry some patients are just apprehensive about having surgery and they're not going to have surgery your cataracts can be left inside your eye indefinitely and safely and if you don't mind seeing blurry you most likely never actually have to have cataract surgery the second choice is you could get new glasses to optimize your vision through your cloudy cataracts or third you could have cataract surgery to improve your vision so you can see the world in focus with optimal clarity about 50 of our surgical patients have visually significant cataracts at the time of their lens replacement or cataract surgery so what are the benefits and realistic expectations with premium lens replacement or premium cataract surgery with a presbyopia correcting lens in 2021 the most common presbyopia correcting lens we use is the panoptix lens it provides great vision far mid and near with minimal to no use of glasses so if you use bifocals you won't need bifocals anymore if you use readers all day for near work you won't need reading glasses much if at all and will be able to see up close and far away without glasses the panoptix basically makes you see like a normal sighted 40 to 44 year old and that you have full range of focus from far to near without glasses in most situations and the lens will last for the rest of your life what's the success rate with the panoptix lens in our experience about 99 of patients are satisfied with their visual outcome after premium lens replacement or premium cataract surgery with the panoptix lens most of these patients rarely use glasses after bilateral surgery and if they wear glasses it's for prolonged reading or nighttime driving some questions and answers is the surgery or any lens implant perfect no there's no lens implant that's as perfect as the lens of a 20 to 40 year old there's no lens that's going to give you perfect vision no halo at all at night not in 2021 can we guarantee that you will not use glasses after premium surgery no we want you to expect that you will see well without glasses for most situations but you may still need some glasses some of the time for some situations what are the main risks of premium lens replacement and premium cataract surgery well i've had premium lens replacement in 2017 i had premium lens replacement with the symphony lens implant into my right eye and i'll share the links below to my before and after experience so i understand and had to weigh the risks and benefits of having premium lens replacement or premium cataract surgery on myself and in a nutshell here are the main risks there's a one in a thousand chance you'll have a complication after surgery that causes you to have poor vision permanently the most common situation is that surgery goes well but you develop a retina problem such as a retina detachment and the retina problem is treated surgically but the eye does not heal well after the retina surgery leading to permanently blurred vision in that eye so the risk the true serious risk is one in a thousand the way i thought of it when i had my own surgery is if you have a bucket and you pour 999 white marbles in the bucket and you place one black marble into the bucket and you mix it up the risk that you reach in and grab the one black marble which is the one in a thousand risk that's your risk of having a serious problem associated with lens replacement surgery it's low very low risk but nothing is zero risk the second risk is that there's about a 1 in 100 chance that you'll have a complication that can be fixed with subsequent surgery so in this situation your vision ultimately ends up being pretty normal and for example you develop a retina problem and the retina problem is addressed with a surgical procedure on your retina and your eye heals normally and you ultimately see fine if you receive a presbyopia correcting lens you will see halos around lights at night the panoptix lens the symphony lens and a lot of premium lenses have rings in the lens implant these rings enable the lens to deliver a full range of focus from far to near without glasses but the trade-off is that you will see a halo around lights at night around oncoming headlights brake lights and traffic lights when driving halos are not seen during the day they're only seen at night there is the possibility that you will not be in perfect focus after your surgery and you'll need a re-treatment we use the most advanced diagnostic instruments to measure your eye before surgery and we use these measurements to select the implant prescription to correct your vision the issue is that the measurements are not perfect and the formulas that we use to select the correct implant to bring your eye into ideal focus they're not perfect what that means is that there's a chance that you will have surgery and be slightly out of focus with residual astigmatism farsightedness or nearsightedness if you receive a panoptix implant in premium lens replacement or premium cataract surgery and you've never had prior corneal surgery such as radial keratotomy or lasik then there's about a 90 to 95 percent chance of being at or near perfect focus these patients have one surgery on the eye they see well and they're happy on the other hand there's about a five to eight percent chance of being slightly out of focus after your first surgery and these patients have the option of having a touch-up surgical procedure such as lasik astigmatic corneal surgery prk or lens exchange to bring their vision into better focus this touch up or enhancement procedures generally done four to six weeks after the first surgery one fine point one fine point about patients that have had prior lasik or rk surgery in the past and now want premium surgery there's a higher retreatment rate generally about 20 percent for these patients and the formulas that we use to calculate and select the correct implant are not quite as accurate in eyes that have had prior corneal surgery the good news is that if you choose premium lens replacement or premium cataract surgery the enhancements are covered by your initial surgical fee in other words if you need a second surgical procedure such as astigmatic corneal surgery lasik prk or lens exchange within one year after your initial surgery then there's no additional charge for your enhancement procedure and most patients will have some temporary side effects during the first week such as dry eyes inflammation or slightly fuzzy vision as part of the normal healing process which gets better within a week so let's address the cost question how much does premium lens replacement surgery cost in our practice well if you do not have a visually significant cataract which is generally the group between the ages of 45 and 65 then your surgery is considered elective or cosmetic and not covered by insurance the cost for premium lens replacement with a presbyopia correcting lens such as the panoptix in this situation is 6300 per eye on the other hand if you have a visually significant cataract and you have medical insurance that we're providers for and you want premium surgery then your cost is your insurance co-payment your unmet insurance deductible and forty four hundred dollars per eye will bill your insurance for cataract surgery if you choose premium cataract surgery you'll be charged for the elective component of surgery that includes the premium presbyopia correcting lens implant to make premium surgery more affordable we offer a 24-month no interest payment program through care credit and accept most major credit cards i'll put a link to care credit down below are there other premium lens options yes the vividy and the symphony lens are premium lenses that we use the vivid lens gives excellent far and mid-range vision to about this distance but gives very weak near vision the advantage of the vividly over the panoptix is that patients have very little night halo with oncoming car or traffic lights at night the disadvantage of the vividly is those patients will definitely need reading glasses the symphony lens gives excellent far and mid range and good near vision but the near vision of the symphony is a little bit weaker than the panoptix and this lens delivers better reading vision than the vividy but produces a halo around lights similar to the pen optics so how do we decide which lens to use well during your eye exam will match the lens that's the best fit for you given your expectations and the condition and measurements of your eyes let's talk about two more scenarios astigmatism correcting cataract surgery and basic cataract surgery patients who choose astigmatism correcting cataract surgery have visually significant cataracts and they want to see to drive and watch tv without glasses they don't mind wearing glasses to read or see the computer or the dashboard these patients don't want a night halo around lights when driving at night and they prefer the lower cost of astigmatism correcting cataract surgery compared to the cost of premium cataract surgery patients who choose basic cataract surgery have visually significant cataracts and they prefer to minimize their out-of-pocket expenses they want to have the basic lens that insurance covers and this basic monofocal lens provides excellent vision but does not correct for astigmatism or presbyopia and therefore in order for patients with a basic monofocal lens to see clearly after basic cataract surgery they need to wear glasses such as bifocals most of the time patients who choose basic cataract surgery don't mind wearing glasses full time to see their best far mid and near there's minimal halo at night seen through a basic monofocal lens when patients wear their prescription glasses another question is are the risks of basic or astigmatism correcting cataract surgery higher or lower than premium cataract surgery the risks of all three lens surgeries premium lens replacement premium cataract surgery astigmatism correcting cataract surgery and basic cataract surgery are essentially the same they're all very safe one additional point during your eye exam will perform a comprehensive examination to determine if there are any additional medical conditions that could affect your vision i'm talking about conditions to your cornea your retina your optic nerve do you have glaucoma do you have some pre-existing eye problem each eye is unique and if there are medical eye conditions that we find that will limit your vision we'll explain them in detail and explain how they may or will limit your vision after lens replacement or cataract surgery we're super experienced with lens replacement and cataract surgery and our surgical team and ambulatory surgical center are devoted to helping you have a great experience before during and after your surgery we're among the most experienced in the country in performing premium and basic cataract surgery and are skilled at delivering the best outcomes safely while mitigating risks and it's our mission to help you see your best and to have the very best experience and outcome that you could achieve anywhere in the world that's our standard and our commitment to you if you made it to the end of this video thank you thank you for watching i hope this information was helpful thanks again and have a wonderful day bye you

Channel: Shannon Wong, MD

Views: 703,994

Keywords: Lasik surgery, cataract surgery, premium lens replacement, refractive lens exchange, panoptix lens, Vivity lens, astigmatism- correction cataract surgery, laser cataract surgery, Austin eye, cataract surgery austin, Lasik surgery austin, laser eye surgery austin, best eye surgeon austin, best ophthalmologist austin, best Lasik surgeon austin

Id: AQqviFFDo10

Length: 22min 42sec (1362 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 05 2021