Benefits, Complications & Risks
The benefit is to improve your clarity of vision and colour vision. As with all surgical procedures, there is a small element of risks associated with your operation. Some of these can be serious. The success of the operation also depends on whether you have any pre-existing eye conditions. The potential complications during the operation are:
- Severe Bleeding inside the eye during operation, which may cause loss of vision
- A tear in the capsule with disturbance of the gel inside the eye that sometimes leads to reduced vision
- Loss of all or part of the cataract into the back of the eye, which requires another operation often requiring a general anaesthetic
- Allergic reaction to local anaesthetics.
The potential complications after the operation are:
- Bruising of the eye or eyelids
- High pressure inside the eye
- Clouding of the cornea
- Swelling of the retina (macular oedema)
- Detached retina that can lead to loss of vision
- Infection (endopthalmitis)- which can lead to loss of sight or, on very rare occasions, loss of the eye
The risk of total loss of vision is about 1 to 3 in 1000.
