Video Transcription
Hello and welcome to Case of the Day. I’m Dr Croley and today we’re gonna discuss a case about where a patient came in who’ve had Cataract surgery in the past and had some Astigmatism and they weren’t happy with the quality of their vision at distance without glasses. So they wanted to see what we can do about correcting their Astigmatism and give sharper, better vision without glasses for driving.
So what is Astigmatism? So Astigmatism in simple terms is that, this cornea, the clear part of your eye, this cornea is slightly shaped more like a football than a basketball. That is, it’s more steeper in one direction than it is the other direction. So then when light focuses into the retina, in the back, back here, then now the light is not focused to a sharp clear point but is actually focused to a line which then that’s the reason with people who have Astigmatism and they look at street lights at night or car headlights have the streak that’s because of the Astigmatism not focusing everything to a clear point.
So what do we about the Astigmatism? Well we have several different options of what you can do about treating your Astigmatism after Cataract surgery or even sometimes during Cataract surgery. One choice is that, we can make an incision along the edge of the cornea, right near where the white part starts, the sclera, and we can make an incision on the steep side of the football to let that relax slightly and then take the shape somewhere to the other side, the other direction of the cornea. And so that will then get rid of the Astigmatism. So that’s one option.
Another option that we have is called a Conductive Keratoplasty or CK and that is a collagen probe is placed on the long side of the football and this cuts this probe and shrinks the collagen on that part of the cornea and brings that cornea down so now it matches the steep side on the other side.
Or the last choice would be, if there was a lot of Astigmatism, then someone could have a laser procedure such as LASIK or LASEK, or the older term even, PRK, to correct Astigmatism or if they’ve had any nearsightedness or farsightedness, that would be corrected at the same time. Pretty much when I do these procedures, I choose between CK and an LRI, or LK Limbal Relaxing Incision, depending on what the overall strength or prescription for the eye is. That is if someone is slightly nearsighted, then I do a Limbal Relaxing Incision with the incision so that way it stretches that part and makes a person slightly, slightly, less nearsighted. And so if someone is a little bit on the slightly farsighted side after their Cataract surgery and have Astigmatism, then I use CK because CK is gonna steepen the cornea and make someone less farsighted.
So depending on the situation that we determine that ahead of time, then we choose what is the most appropriate way of correcting someone’s Astigmatism. So this works very well and so if someone out there has Astigmatism and that’s all they have nothing else, then there are some recently easy options on how to correct your Astigmatism.
So if you have any questions about Astigmatism or any other problem, you can always contact us through this website we’ll be happy to try to answer your questions. If not, may God bless you with healthy eyes and great vision.
Leave a Reply