Skill of surgeons required to remove cataract caused by vitrectomy

[taurus1203]

I am planning to have a cataract surgery caused in the RD surgery and I guess from the gas bubble.
I 've seen the web page of one eye institute mentioned
"These cataract is difficult to remove and should be doe by surgeons who are skilled in these techniques, because there is poor vitreous support which was removed at the time of previous surgery. The cataract surgery which is to be performed in the post vitrectomized eye is very complicated, since there can be unknown damage to the posterior capsule which will only be seen when the cataract surgeons attempt to remove the lens or cataract material"
The web page also mentioned that their surgeons have good experience to perform anterior and posterior simultaneous and should have good capable to handle these situations.

Is it true that the removing cataract caused by RD surgery is much more difficult and may not be handled by surgeons who mainly deal with age-related cataract ?

Thanks in advance

[taurus1203]

I think the headache is not directly from cataract. I guess it should be caused by the long lasting eye strain which is caused by the imbalance of  vision and myopia between the 2 eyes.

[des900]

headache is possibly due to variation in power between two eyes, appropriate glasses will help to minimize this to some extent.

opt surgery only if cataract is severe as you have already done many surgeries on it.

headache is possibly not due to cataract, it can come for many reasons like over anxiety,eye strain etc

[taurus1203]

Hi des900
I would also like to wait for another year if the problem is not so obstructing.
I always has eye-strain. The eye-strain will sometimes develops to eye pain and even headache. This really affects my life.
I am not 100% this is due to the cataract. But after seeing so many eye doctors and they cannot find some other obvious problems except the vision and myopia of my surgery eye. It is 20/50 and -4.5 myopia compared to 20/15 and -1.5. The eye doctors think that my strain is properly due to the imbalance of the 2 eyes and suggest me to perform a cataract surgery.
I also found someone from a RD newsgroup have similar symptom and getting better after the cataract surgery (9 months after the RD surgery).
I had my RD surgery 9 months ago and I hope this is not too early to have a cataract surgery.
I really want to cure (or at least reduce) the eye strain and headache asap.

[Ray T Oyakawa, MD]

Rapid progression of cataract after the vitrectomy.  I doubt you have this with a visual acuity of 20/50.  However, there could have been mild instrument touch to the posterior capsule  if their is a mild radial opacity in the area of the vitreous instruments (usually 10, 2, 8 (right eye, 4 left eye) o/c.  This could lead to a higher incidence of  posterior capsular rupture.

Dr. O.

[taurus1203]

Dr Oyakawa,
Thanks a lot for your explanation.
Would you please tell me what are the symptoms of a damage to the lens capsule. I read that (maybe I understood), the a damage to the lens capsule will cause a very bad vision. I hope I don't have this problem as my vision of the surgery eye is 20/50 and I hope this is not too bad.

Thanks in advance.

[des900]

If your cataract is not so obstructing wait for some time rather than going for a quick fix.

[taurus1203]

Dr Oyakawa,
I have a gas bubble after the RD surgery, I assume that I had the vitrectomy being done. Why there is chance of poor vitreous support ? Is it rare that there is damage in the posterior capsule.

If there are 2 surgeons
1. One specializes in cataract surgery and perform many thousands of cataract surgery
2. One specializes in vitrectomy but also do cataract. It seems he did perform anterior and posterior simultaneous.

Which one will you prefer for my scenario ?

[Ray T Oyakawa, MD]

It is true and depends on the skill of the surgeon.

Dr. O.