Have you seen flashes of light moving around the eye infront of the retina. These are called Flashes which occurs when vitreous moves around in the eye. Diabetic retinopathy is also a big cause of Vitreo-Retina to occue which damages the blood vessels in the eye. We provide extensive eye care in the field of vitreo-retinal services with Vitrectomy Surgery where the surgeon will remove the vitreous from the retina.

In today’s digital media, everyone is probably familiar with the disease entity ‘cataract’. Any opacification of the crystalline lens inside the eye is known as a cataract. There is no particular age for this. Although this is more often seen in the older population (age-related senile cataracts), the occurrence of cataracts in children (congenital or developmental cataracts) is not uncommon. Development of cataracts due to other causes, like traumatic cataracts, drug (steroid) induced cataracts, metabolic or diabetic cataracts, etc are also encountered in our day-to-day practice. Cataracts are characterized by gradual dimness of vision in one or both eyes. Sometimes this symptom is overlooked in bilateral cases if the loss of vision is symmetrical and is slowly progressing over months or years. Even profound dimness in one eye can be missed by a patient if the other eye does not have any significant cataractous changes. Routine check-ups at the Ophthalmologist’s clinic at regular intervals may be helpful in an early diagnosis.

Treatment of cataracts is simple. Contrary to popular belief, it does not have any medical treatment. Early surgery is advisable in all diagnosed cases, especially in cases of pediatric cataracts, where delay in surgery may render irreparable damage to vision. With the advent of the latest phacoemulsification technology, opacified lenses can be easily emulsified with ultrasound energy with incisions as small as 2.2 mm. After completion of phacoemulsification,
an artificial foldable lens (IOL) is implanted intraocularly to give patients crystal clear vision. Preexisting refractive errors are taken into account while calculating the power of this IOL, and selection is done according to patients’ daily activity and visual needs. Nowadays, there are minimal to no restrictions following surgery, patients can resume all of their daily activities from the very next day. Cataract is the commonest of all causes of preventable blindness in our country. To spread awareness in society, it is important to rise above the myths and
misbeliefs associated with cataracts and also by implementing regular visits to the eye clinic for self and near and dear ones.

Dr. Arunia De
Ophthalmologist, HOD-Sankara Jyoti Eye Institute

Glaucoma is primarily hereditary in nature and can develop in any age group, even though norms suggest it happens in elderly people than younger ones. It is a heterogeneous disorder which leads to progressive loss of mid-peripheral visual functionality and blindness. In simpler words, the aqueous humor is the eye’s drainage system. If the drainage system works properly, then fluid drains out and buildup is prevented. In cases of glaucoma, the drainage system becomes clogged and the intraocular fluid cannot drain, leading to pressure within the eye becoming higher. The high intraocular pressure damages the sensitive optic nerves and results in irreversible loss of vision. The optic nerve connects the eye to the brain and the nerve fibers from the retina. There are millions of nerves that run from the retina to the optic disk. When the fluid pressure increases to a point where it damages the nerve fibers, it begins to die.

Refractive surgery deals with common problems of the eye which are near sightedness (myopia), far sightedness (hyperopia). Every person having these kind of eye problems complaint that their near vision has become an issue as they have difficulty in reading or there are complaints that the farther vision gets blurred and people are unable to see far away things within a reasonable distance. These kind of issues needs to be treated to prevent further deterioration of the vision. LASIK is one of the state of the art surgery procedure to treat refractive errors. LASIK is the acronym for laser assisted in-situ keratomileusis. The name refers to the use of a laser to reshape the cornea without invading the neighboring cell layers. LASIK is currently the most commonly performed refractive surgery in the United States and in India.

Comprehensive Ophthalmology covers all discipline of general ophthalmology which covers cataract surgery, glaucoma, and retinal surgeries. Specialized procedures like phaco, LASIK, Glaucoma comes under comprehensive ophthalmology.