The first step in any major surgical procedure is to have a drain placed. Whether a cataract surgery, total knee replacement, or even a coronary artery bypass, a drain will be placed to help prevent infections and keep fluids from building up in the eye.
Drainage is very important, not only for keeping fluids free from clogging the eye, but for preventing an infection from developing at the surgical site.
According to Dr. David C. Lee, MD, a professor of ophthalmology at the University of California, Irvine, a good idea to place a drain is to first decide whether your cataract is going to be in the front of the eye or the back. In front of the eye, the lens of the eye can be damaged and can cause damage to the cornea, which leads to vision problems.
Dr. Lee states that the first thing to do after you remove a cataract is to soak it in a solution of balanced salt solution with 1:10 dilution of tetra-sodium ethylenitetra-nitrate (Tetraneut) for at least five days. This will give the lens time to recover and prevent infection from forming. This can be repeated several times to get rid of the infection and keep the eye free of any complications.
The solution itself is an acetate salt and is a potassium salt so it will cause the salt to dissolve. In the first treatment, tetra-sodium ethylenitetra-nitrate Tetraneut is absorbed into the bloodstream and will cause severe kidney failure. As the salt dissolves, it will wash away any bacteria and other toxins that have built up in the cornea.
Once the salt is gone, the eye will be kept clean and dry. It will also be easier to see, as the salt will be much easier to remove from the eye.
I’m not sure if I’d be able to survive surgery without a saline solution, but I would be very grateful for anyone who could. My eyes have been really dry for the past few months, and it’s not that I’m not drinking enough water, it’s just that they’re not drying out as fast as they used to.
Dr. Gogol is famous for his salt-removal procedures, but he isn’t the only one who has had success with saline solution. Dr. Cairns used to go to the Mayo Clinic and use saline solution, and Dr. Shiloh performed the first successful saline-removal surgery in the 1990s. And in the past five years, multiple plastic surgeons have all used saline solution for eye surgery.
Dr. Gogol, with the help of Drs. DeMarini and Gogol, developed a new way to treat corneal ulcers. The saline solution is injected directly into the ulcer, and the swelling is slowed down by a substance called hyaluronic acid. The procedure has a 90% success rate, and can last a year or more.
And like the other surgery techniques, it’s not just about the treatment of the initial ulcer. It’s also about preventing recurrence, the recurrence of the ulcer that happens when the blood doesn’t get out of the eye. Dr. Gogol, with the help of his colleagues from UCLA, discovered that a substance called hyaluronic acid could prevent the blood from returning to the eye.