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Cataract treatment

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  • No, this is the old system, now superseded. It used to be thought that you had to wait until they were 'ripe'. This is no longer the case. I can't emphasise that too strongly.

    Although from a clinical point of view the above is true, NHS/LHA guidelines for when a patient can have a cataract op have become much stricter over the last couple of years, entirely for financial reasons. Obviously if you pay for the op privately, you can get it done much sooner than on the NHS. To meet the NHS criteria, you have to be really struggling with your vision. My personal opinion is that it's horrendously unfair!
    "Most of the people ... were unhappy... Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy." -- Douglas Adams
  • margaretclare
    margaretclare Posts: 10,789 Forumite
    Although from a clinical point of view the above is true, NHS/LHA guidelines for when a patient can have a cataract op have become much stricter over the last couple of years, entirely for financial reasons. Obviously if you pay for the op privately, you can get it done much sooner than on the NHS. To meet the NHS criteria, you have to be really struggling with your vision. My personal opinion is that it's horrendously unfair!


    Ooops. This is one of the things that has changed in the last couple of years, in that case, and explains the difficulty our friend (referred to above) is having. To my mind it was the worst when one eye had been done and not the other, it was worse than when neither had been done. We were lucky, then, to have them done in 2007. Yes, it is horrendously unfair.
    [FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Æ[/FONT]r ic wisdom funde, [FONT=Times New Roman, serif]æ[/FONT]r wear[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]ð[/FONT] ic eald.
    Before I found wisdom, I became old.
  • pollypenny
    pollypenny Posts: 29,416 Forumite
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    I can see there being more delays, as it's not a life-saving procedure.

    I would pay as life wouldn't be worth living for me if I wasn't able to read.
    Member #14 of SKI-ers club

    Words, words, they're all we have to go by!.

    (Pity they are mangled by this autocorrect!)
  • Mrs_Arcanum
    Mrs_Arcanum Posts: 23,976 Forumite
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    pollypenny wrote: »
    I can see there being more delays, as it's not a life-saving procedure.

    I would pay as life wouldn't be worth living for me if I wasn't able to read.

    Daft thing is, cataracts could get to the stage where someone couldn't see to work before they get treatment due to penny pinching. How cost effective is that in the long term?
    Truth always poses doubts & questions. Only lies are 100% believable, because they don't need to justify reality. - Carlos Ruiz Zafon, The Labyrinth of the Spirits
  • McKneff
    McKneff Posts: 38,857 Forumite
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    ~Todays treatment for Cataracts is so run of the mill nowadays, you are in and out in a couple of hours.

    My husband had his done aroung 30 years ago and was in hospital for 10 days each time, that was normall.

    Cataracts cloud the lens over and the operations then was that the whole lens was removed and that was it, jam jar bottom glasses had to be worn to replace the lens. Unfortunately, this left a 'void' leading to detached retinas later on in life.

    Nowadays, the lens is removed and another one is put in its place.
    His cataracts and eye problems run in the family, our son and daughter had theirs done in their late twenties/early thirties, the 'new way' and have had no problems what so ever.
    Our grandson aged 20 has had them for years and will have his done soon

    New lease of life for you on the cards, brilliant.
    make the most of it, we are only here for the weekend.
    and we will never, ever return.
  • Daft thing is, cataracts could get to the stage where someone couldn't see to work before they get treatment due to penny pinching. How cost effective is that in the long term?

    Oh, it's far worse than that! To get them done earlier than the recommended time ('practically blind' in layman's terms :)) you have to be able to prove detriment of life, i.e. they're stopping you from working or driving. The majority of cataracts are age-related, rather than congenital, so patients are generally in their 70s. Most people are retired by then, and a lot don't drive. So because they haven't been forced to give up work/driving by the cataracts, it doesn't count towards detriment.
    "Most of the people ... were unhappy... Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy." -- Douglas Adams
  • coster
    coster Posts: 6 Forumite
    Many thanks to everyone for very helpful and informative responses. I had to see my GP yesterday for my annual medication review. I told him about my forthcoming appointment (next week) with the opthalmologist and I asked him whether the severity of the cataracts was the main criteria for receiving treatment.

    My GP said that equally important was the effects that the eye problem was having on quality of life and how the patient felt about receiving treatment.

    For myself, I feel that my impaired vision quite significantly affects my quality of life and I feel certain that I would benefit from treatment. So I will make absolutely sure that I put my case over to the opthalmologist. As MC puts it, be assertive (and insistent) not passive or agressive. That sounds like a good game plan.

    Once again thanks for all responses. I will report back in about a weeks' time after I have been examined next Friday.
  • margaretclare
    margaretclare Posts: 10,789 Forumite
    Oh, it's far worse than that! To get them done earlier than the recommended time ('practically blind' in layman's terms :)) you have to be able to prove detriment of life, i.e. they're stopping you from working or driving. The majority of cataracts are age-related, rather than congenital, so patients are generally in their 70s. Most people are retired by then, and a lot don't drive. So because they haven't been forced to give up work/driving by the cataracts, it doesn't count towards detriment.

    Again, we were lucky to get them done when we did. Under the criteria you spell out, it wouldn't have counted in my favour the fact that I was doing GCSE Maths and couldn't see the board. They'd simply laugh and say 'why do you need GCSE Maths at your age?' Which was said, in fact, but I managed to counter it with my own arguments as to why I myself, personally, for my own satisfaction, my feeling of self-worth, to kill off ghosts from the past whispering 'oh she can't, oh she'll never...' did feel it was important. I did not need GCSE Maths for education, qualifications, jobs - I already had a degree which includes statistics (go figure!) and in any case I was not going to seek work again. And I suppose the arguments about needing to drive would not hold water either, it would be like others have said in different threads on this site that they don't see why I need to drive and why I can't just use the free bus pass. To those arguments, again, it's personal.

    As Pennyforthem says, the condition itself may not be life-threatening, but the consequences of delay between one eye being done and waiting for the other, may be extremely serious and may even be fatal. I am sorry for your loss Pennyforthem.
    [FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Æ[/FONT]r ic wisdom funde, [FONT=Times New Roman, serif]æ[/FONT]r wear[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]ð[/FONT] ic eald.
    Before I found wisdom, I became old.
  • margaretclare
    margaretclare Posts: 10,789 Forumite
    edited 1 July 2012 at 9:14AM
    coster wrote: »
    Many thanks to everyone for very helpful and informative responses. I had to see my GP yesterday for my annual medication review. I told him about my forthcoming appointment (next week) with the opthalmologist and I asked him whether the severity of the cataracts was the main criteria for receiving treatment.

    My GP said that equally important was the effects that the eye problem was having on quality of life and how the patient felt about receiving treatment.

    For myself, I feel that my impaired vision quite significantly affects my quality of life and I feel certain that I would benefit from treatment. So I will make absolutely sure that I put my case over to the opthalmologist. As MC puts it, be assertive (and insistent) not passive or aggressive. That sounds like a good game plan.

    Once again thanks for all responses. I will report back in about a weeks' time after I have been examined next Friday.

    DH and I have found that, in all the appointments either of us has had of recent years with different consultants, the words 'quality of life' have been mentioned. When he had prostate surgery in February '11, there was actually a scoring system for quality of life assessment. Again, that wasn't life-threatening once they had the biopsy results and found no cancer - after all, who cared if a man in his middle 70s got up 6 times a night to go to the bathroom, it wasn't going to kill him (as some might have said, if the criterion was purely cost).

    I think the 'powers that be' in the NHS may find it difficult to reconcile these two opposing concepts - the phrase 'does it affect your quality of life' and 'but it costs money and can this person live without this expensive treatment, is it really necessary'? The two statements don't really go together.

    For my DH and me, the bonus of not wearing glasses all the time was something you can't describe. Better than winning the lottery or Olympic gold, which is only fleeting. He still sometimes automatically reaches for his glasses the moment he wakes up, as he had done every morning of his life for 60 years. I don't any longer, but I did for a while. So many ways it affects a woman's appearance - I even tried contact lenses but couldn't get along with them. I could never wear eye make-up because I couldn't see to put it on. Now, I don't wear eye make-up anyway because it irritates, but for a long time I wanted to wear it but couldn't.

    About driving, I could actually survive if I couldn't drive any longer - I could do internet shopping, I already do internet banking so don't need to go and 'get my pension in cash'. I could actually get into town, our little market town in one direction and the bigger town the other way, and there are always taxis e.g. to our little airport half a mile away from where I could fly to many destinations (since April!) and there's the train into London. DH would find it a lot more difficult. However, many of the places I now go to are not reachable by bus, or maybe only by several buses. And the freedom of being able to pick up and go wheresoever we wish, whenever we wish, is of incalculable value. Our next holiday will be the one we originally planned for the week before Easter when DH was told 'oh you can't possibly go on holiday, your back might seize up at any time, this is urgent..' the sub-text being 'you could end up paralysed'. It will involve going by car ferry to Calais then a 4-night stay at the Novotel, Amiens (already paid for) which means driving about 100 miles down into France. So we still do need the car.
    [FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Æ[/FONT]r ic wisdom funde, [FONT=Times New Roman, serif]æ[/FONT]r wear[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]ð[/FONT] ic eald.
    Before I found wisdom, I became old.
  • Cataract Log for J.Rice

    Purpose
    The purpose of this log is to record my problems and solutions whilst living with developing cataracts in both eyes and trying to continue a normal life and job whilst waiting for the operation. The purpose of this log is to make clinicians aware of the problems people face whilst living with cataracts and the risks we put ourselves and others to whilst living with diminishing eyesight.

    My Letter to my GP at Clifton Medical Practice 27th June 2012-07-01

    Dear Dr.Poon,

    Earlier this year I thought it prudent to consult an ophthalmologist regarding a rapid deterioration of my eyesight and chose Specsavers in West Bridgford as they are comprehensively equipped with the newest eye testing equipment. They diagnosed cataracts in the centre of both of my eyes but stated that I needed “to wait until they were “ripe” enough for the surgeons to operate “ and to not drive home until I had been equipped with new glasses and specifically corrective lens Polaroid glasses, which after some weeks arrived and allowed me to drive again.

    Subsequent to this advice I researched the subject and found their advice to be baloney and a tactic employed by the local NHS trust aided and abetted by local Opticians to limit demand for surgery and sell more glasses.

    I wrote to Specsaver’s in West Bridgford and included the NHS reference material to not waiting for cataract ripening and asked them why they were advocating this course of treatment to their patients (customers) when current NHS advice was contrary? They invited me in for a further examination with an alternative ophthalmologist, whom I am informed, has written to you suggesting a referral to the hospital.

    To date I have not received an invitation to attend the hospital and wondered if you could check on progress? I am finding it very difficult to perform my regular duties as a managing director of a small technology company. It is taking me ages to compose and write letters, plus driving in sunny weather is difficult and Airport annunciators are impossible I was recently at Schiphol airport and was unable to read any flight information. I have a big workload scheduled this autumn with new business installations in the North East, Hertfordshire and Europe. The ability to Fly& drive, see computer screens and to walk down steps without difficulty is a prerequisite for my job.

    I have struggled hard to put this note together, my eyesight has deteriorated so markedly that I keep mistyping letters and emails and this is getting noticed by staff and customers. I would be grateful if you could update me on progress with my cataract hospital appointment.

    Yours Sincerely

    J.Rice Mr.


    Near Miss Log
    This details my near accidents associated with my declining vision and my brain’s interpretation of what it sees. Essentially the brain fills in the gaps which might not be there!

    Location Time Date Incident Description
    World Bank OIAS2 Conference Safari Park Hotel Nairobi Kenya 12.07pm 29th May 2012 Missed my footing on the steps leading to the conference building. Strong Overhead sunlight I was wearing my prescription Polaroid glasses. Just a stumble which I was able to recover from.
    Finca el cerrelo Hotel Canillas Spain 4.00pm 21st June Strong sunlight on white steps again I misjudged the steps whilst wearing my prescription sunglasses and with no balustrade ended up in the flower beds
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