I’m going to take a short break from posting the Cataract Surgery Essentials Audio Series as I’m having some mild technical difficulty installing the Podpress plug-in.  If you don’t know what that is, I just learned about it myself (which probably explains why I’m having difficulty with it). I had dinner last night with one of LA’s top cataract surgeons, Dr. Barry Seibel.  He is one of the few surgeons on the...

How the Eye Works Before we begin the discussion about cataracts and cataract surgery, I’d like to first introduce you to the way the eye works.  I find it most helpful to think of the eye as a video camera hooked up to a TV monitor.  A video camera has a lens to focus the light, film (or electronic sensors) to capture the image, and a cable to transmit the image to the monitor or recording device.  In a similar manner, the eye...

Cataract Surgery Essentials It has been awhile since I have had a chance to update my blog. However, I have good reason: I have been working on an audio project for my patients with cataracts. I will now share this project online through my blog (and eventually my website). As many people with significant cataracts have, by definition, poor vision it seemed odd to me that we were handing our patients reams of paperwork describing the...

Cataract surgery, the most commonly performed surgery in the world (and one of the most successful) has just gained another accolade: the ability to treat glaucoma. Glaucoma is a progressive loss of the “nerve fiber layer” of the eye.  This layer is essentially a series of wires that transmit the signal from the eye to the brain.  Just as a frayed cable from your DVD to your TV would result in a poor quality picture, loss of...

The “stitch or no stitch” controversy in ophthalmology may be ended by an unlikely marriage of ink jet technology and shellfish.  “What?” you say.  Let me explain: There has been a movement toward sutureless cataract surgery over the last ten years.  The main reasons for this movement are that sutures take time to place, can be uncomfortable (during and after surgery), may induce astigmatism, sometimes have to be...