Modern cataract surgery is safe, effective, predictable-and quite common! If you think that you might have a cataract or been told that you have a cataract, there is no need to be overly concerned as you are hardly alone. Over 2.5 million cataract surgery procedures are performed in the United States each year, making it the most common eye surgery and one of the most common types of surgery overall. Thanks to our advanced cataract surgery techniques and intraocular lens implant (IOL) technology, cataract surgery is not only one of the most frequently performed surgical procedures in the United States, but it is also one of the safest and most successful surgical procedures that you can have.
Drs. Alterman, Modi and Wolter are highly experienced cataract surgeons. They perform cataract surgery on an outpatient basis at the Dutchess Ambulatory Surgical center in Poughkeepsie as well other facilities that may be required by your insurance plans. For most patients, they are able to use a “no patch-no stitch-no needle” technique of cataract surgery. With our cataract surgeons, the entire process usually only requires a few hours of your time from start to finish.
Cataract surgery at Dutchess Ambulatory Surgical center with Drs. Alterman, Modi and Wolter is quite comfortable. Upon your arrival at the surgical center adjacent to Seeta Eye Centers, you will find a number of staff members present to assist you and make your experience pleasant.
The first step in preparing you for your cataract surgery will be to anesthetize your eye so that you will not be uncomfortable. In fact you will not feel any discomfort, and at most will feel a slight pressure around the eye being treated. Most likely you will feel little if anything during your surgery. For almost all patients having cataract surgery, numbing the eye consists of nothing more than placing a few sets of eye drops in your eye.
Your cataract surgeon will then create a very tiny incision at the outermost edge of your cornea. This incision will be just big enough to allow a microscopic instrument the size of a pen tip to pass through it and is so small that it does not require stitches to heal. The tip of this microscopic instrument, or probe, is actually a precise and complex surgical instrument that your surgeon uses to remove your cataract.
Next, the surgeon will gently pass the microscopic instrument through the tiny incision so that ultrasound waves produced at the tip of the instrument can be used to gently break the cataract into pieces small enough to be washed away, drawn through the instrument and removed from the eye. This cataract removal method is called “phacoemulsification” and is the preferred technique of cataract surgery for most patients. Our surgeons also use a technique AquaLase® Liquefaction. This is another lens removal method that removes cloudy crystalline lens material by using pulses of surgical solution to safely break up and remove the natural lens material. Simply then, AquaLase® Liquefaction breaks up the clouded lens with pulses of warm, naturally balanced solution to "wash away" the lens.
After your cataract has been gently removed, the surgeon will be able to insert a new permanent Intraocular Lens implant (IOL) into your eye. The replacement lens will actually be inserted and placed in the correct position through the same tiny incision at the outer edge of the cornea through which the cataract was removed.
Once the cataract has been removed and the new permanent lens has been properly placed in your eye, a Dutchess Ambulatory Surgical Center staff member will take you to a comfortable resting area where you will be able to relax and rest for a short while. After a short rest, you will be ready to be driven home by a family member or friend, or someone from the surgical center. You will be given an appointment to see your surgeon at Seeta Eye Centers within 24 hours of your cataract and lens implant surgery so that he can examine your eye and confirm that you are healing and seeing as planned. It will be necessary to prescribe some eye drops for you to use and necessary for you to wear a protective shield, mainly at night to help you remember not to rub your eye. Although each patient heals a little differently, most of our patients are able to see well enough to return to their routine activities within a day or so after their cataract surgery.
