Vision although a primal sense is nothing short of a blessing. Unfortunately, many people around the world are losing their sense of sight and the number is increasing every day. According to a WHO report, there are around 1.3 billion people in the world, who are living with some form of vision impairment.
Pakistan has also not been safe from the epidemic of vision impairment. Although there have only been two national surveys regarding eye health. The latest one shows that there are more than 1.25 million blind people in the country. With increasing vision problems, the field of medicine and surgery are also making compensations. Eye surgeons are coming up with new innovative surgeries every now and then to treat people more efficiently.
In this article, we are listing down four most common eye surgeries.
1 Glaucoma Surgery
Glaucoma surgery is a procedure, which is used to treat a damaged optic nerve. Internal pressure on the optic nerve is usually the cause of glaucoma. Surgery is inevitable since this condition can lead to blindness. There are two popular methods of glaucoma surgery. One is the laser glaucoma surgery and is outpatient.
Thus, you can go directly to your home after the procedure. The conventional glaucoma surgery is also outpatient but it can cause temporary redness in the eyes afterwards. LASER glaucoma surgery is least invasive and thus a popular choice among eye surgeons. They only go for the conventional method when the damage is too high and is not fixable through the LASER.
LASIK
LASIK is probably the most popular eye procedure that is being performed on people who want to see in a better way. This surgery is perfect for people suffering from far or near sightedness. LASIK is a minimally invasive refractive surgery and research has declared it safe 95 percent of the time.
PRK
PRK is another type of refractive surgery. It claims to restore 80% of the sight for far and near sighted people which eventually goes to 95%. LASIK and PRK are similar in their results but in PRK the doctor directly works on the cornea while in LASIK the eye-surgeon creates a flap over the cornea. PRK gets finished in about ten minutes but you may feel some itching afterwards whereas LASIK does not have such repercussions.
Cataract Surgery
Cataracts is a disease of the lens. It makes the lens cloudy and the vision becomes blurry. During cataract surgery, the doctor replaces the cloudy lens with an artificial one, which is clear. As a result, the vision becomes clear again.
This article is written with the intent of education and awareness. It does not encourage self-diagnosis or provides enough information for you to actually make a decision about getting eye surgery. If you are suffering from eye problems, you should discuss the possibility of surgery with your doctor before making a decision.
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This article was produced in partnership with oladoc.com, a digital health company in Pakistan. Using oladoc, you can find the best eye specialist in Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad and book an appointment online.
