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Cataract Surgery Q&A

What are Cataracts?

A cataract is a painless clouding of the human eye lens. It causes vision to be blurred as if looking through a dirty camera lens. As the cloudiness progresses, vision becomes increasingly blurred. The cataract formation interferes with the passage of light into the retina, which is located at the back of the eye. The retina is responsible for converting light into energy signals that are sent to the brain. Cataracts can cause a number of visual symptoms. These include:

• Glare from the sun, headlights, and lamps
• Dimming of vision requiring stronger light to see
• Dulling of color vision, making it difficult to discern between black and navy, for example
• Hazy, blurry or unclear vision
• Difficulty reading small print
• A shadow imaging in one eye
• Frequently changing glasses prescriptions or glasses that don't seem to work.

What Causes Cataracts?

A cataract has many causes. These include; aging, genetics, poor diet, injury, ultraviolet exposure (such as with sunbathing), smoking, diseases such as diabetes, and the use of certain medications (like prednisone and others). Cataracts can occur at any age, from birth to later years.

When Should Cataracts be Removed?

Cataract surgery is performed when vision becomes affected. Years ago, people needed to wait until their cataracts became advanced or “ripe” before surgery could be performed. But thanks to tremendous surgical advances in the 21st Century, that’s no longer the case.

Sometimes, cataracts grow so slowly that people are unaware they’ve lost vision. We share with our patient’s video imaging of their cataract to help them better understand, what is occurring in their eye and how vision is being affected. 

What is Lifestyle Cataract Surgery?

Lifestyle cataract surgery involves removing the cataract (the clouded human lens) and replacing the human lens with a specially designed artificial lens implant. These lenses offer patients a potential for a greater range of vision without using glasses than does traditional cataract surgery. Lifestyle cataract surgery can correct several of patient’s vision problems, including astigmatism, near-sightedness, far-sightedness and presbyopia (a need for reading glasses). We are experienced with all classes of lens implants including;

PanOptix, Eyhance, Vivity, Symfony, Crystalens, Tecnis, Trulign and others. We perform all Lifestyle lenses cataract surgery with the accuracy of the LenSx femtosecond laser.

Our goal is to lessen, or eliminate a patient dependence on glasses

The lifestyle lens implants we most often use are Eyhance and Panoptix.

Eyhance lenses offer a range of vision including distance and intermediate without glasses. They also correct astigmatism.

PanOptix, lenses offer a range of vision including distance, intermediate and reading without glasses. They also correct astigmatism. It is expected to have some degree of haloes at night which diminish in most patients over 6 months.

Astigmatism is a focusing condition that causes blurriness as the result of an eyes cornea being oval and not round. Astigmatism is corrected significantly by lenses implants like Eyhance & Panoptic.

Why Choose Our Doctors to Perform Your Cataract Surgery?

We specialize on the quality and range of vision you achieve after cataract surgery. We limit the number of surgeries we perform in a day to offer you better individual attention. There is also comfort in knowing our doctors have been performing cataract surgery for over three decades with a record of over 20,000 successful procedures and a documented very low complication rate.

Our reputation for excellence is built on a successful integration of several key elements. It starts with a questionnaire focused on your lifestyle needs and expectations. We use a number of sophisticated diagnostic imaging devices that analyze your eye from the front to the back for important measurements as well as a complete eye health analysis. We use artificial intelligence alerts for factors that may affect your surgery.

Our goal is to match each patient with the most appropriate cataract lens implant(s) for them. Using outstanding computer graphics, we help you visualize what the cataract lens implant can accomplish. During surgery we use the most refined, gentle surgical techniques, including the use of the highly accurate femtosecond laser, to achieve our goals. We also modify our preoperative and postoperative medications, to prevent complications, reduce the number of eye drops needed, as well as the cost of the eye drops.

The patient's experience with our detailed evaluation has resulted in a good level of comfort and assurance for an operation most patients would otherwise experience anxiety.

Furthermore, our cataract surgeons are not only surgeons, but were teachers of other surgeons as well. Dr. Hedaya served as a Clinical Instructor of cataract surgery at the New York University Medical Center. Dr. Ragam served as Chief Resident at the New York Eye & Ear Infirmary where she also taught cataract surgery. They are both cataract specialists.

Advanced Technology for Better Results

To ensure patients receive the best results from lifestyle cataract surgery, it is essential to select a surgeon with top-notch expertise and equipment. Specifically, patients should look for:

• The availability of the femtosecond laser to allow for a very reproducible and gentle procedure. We pioneered the use of LenSx femtosecond laser.
• A leading in-office Dry Eye Center to optimize cataract surgery candidates with dry eyes post operative results.
• Advanced computer measurements using sophisticated devices including;
  • the Zeiss IOL Master 700,
  • Zeiss Callisto  tracking system for better vision results (InVision was the first practice in Ocean and & Monmouth County to use this incredible technology)
  • the Marco OPD3, and others.
• In-office Laser Vision Correction capability is also important, as a very small percent of patients may require a complimentary laser touch up procedure following cataract surgery, to obtain their best possible vision.
• The use of effective affordable compounded eye drops for cataract surgery with easy post-op dosing.
  • New technology medications such as Dextenza.
• A great surgical facility to ensure the best possible outcomes. We use Seashore Surgical Institutefor our procedures. Seashore is certified by the Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care and has over a 95% patient satisfaction rating.

Patient Reviews

PanOptix lenses for Dr. Steven Gorcey for renowned gastroenterologist

Russell happy with PanOptix lens for his second eye.

Dr. Brian has clear lens surgery to decrease dependence on glasses.

Rose one month after Crystalens years after Lasik

Cliff has cataract surgery with Crystalens years after Lasik