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What’s up with people wearing those big sunglasses after cataract surgery?
The main reason is for protection - physical protection to assure nothing hits the eye immediately after surgery, and protection from sunlight and other bright lights.
We want to protect the eye from getting hit physically because there is a small incision in the eyeball through which the surgeon has removed the cataract and inserted a new clear lens. In most modern cataract surgeries that incision is very small - about one-tenth of an inch in most cases. The vast majority of surgeons do not stitch the incision closed at the end of surgery. The incision is made with a bevel or flap so that the internal eye pressure pushes the incision closed.
The incision does have some risk of opening, especially if you were to provide direct pressure on the eyeball. Therefore, immediately after surgery we want you to be careful and make sure that you or any outside force doesn’t put direct pressure on the eye. The sunglasses help make sure that doesn’t happen while you are outside immediately after surgery. It’s the same reason that most surgeons ask you to wear a protective plastic shield over the eye at night while you are sleeping for the first week so that you don’t inadvertently rub the eye or smash it into your pillow.
The other advantage of wearing the sunglasses is to protect your eye from bright light, especially in the first day
Is making an appointment for a comprehensive eye exam for your children on your back-to-school checklist? It needs to be.
No amount of new clothes, backpacks, or supplies will allow your child to reach their potential in school if they have an undetected vision problem.
The difference between eye exams and vision screenings
An annual exam done by an eye doctor is more focused than a visual screening done at school. School screenings are simply "pass-fail tests" that are often limited to measuring a child’s sight clarity and visual acuity up to a distance of 20 feet. But this can provide a false sense of security.
There are important differences between a screening and a comprehensive eye exam.
Where a screening tests only for visual acuity, comprehensive exams will test for acuity, chronic diseases, color vision, and eye tracking. This means a child may pass a vision screening at school because they are able to see the board, but they may not be able to see the words in the textbook in front of them.
Why back-to-school eye exams matter
Did you know that 1 out of 4 children has an undiagnosed vision problem because changes in their eyesight go unrecognized?
Myopia, or nearsightedness, is a common condition in children and often develops around the ages of 6 or 7. And nearsightedness can change very quickly, especially between the ages of 11 and 13, which means that an eye prescription can change rapidly over a short period of time. That’s why
Read more: This Might Just Be the Most Important Test Your Child Will Take
