April 5, 2012 
After several years of problems with high astigmatism, and by taking corticosteroids to treat thyroid, Antonia Petricevic (31) from Split has developed cataract in both eyes, which is unusual for her age…
However, she was successfully cured after surgery at the Eye clinic Medić – Žuljan – Jukić, where she got implanted a special toric intraocular lens; a first such procedure in Dalmatia. The ophthalmic team prepared for this procedure for four years. This is just one segment of refractive eye surgery and they plan to add the procedure of laser vision correction by this summer.
We wanted to know how Antonija, who is a nurse looking for employment, experienced the whole procedure.
Black side of corticosteroids
– A year before this operation I had to remove thyroid due to hypothyroidism during which I probably developed cataract because I used corticosteroids – says Antonija and remembers how she noticed that her diopter was getting worse. She’s been wearing glasses since she was ten.
She admits that most of the year she delayed her visit to the ophthalmologist, and when her friend finally urged her she decided to check her diopter.
– A man gets used to poorer vision, but I figured out that something was wrong as soon as light started bothering me. As far as visual acuity, I could not distinguish between coins of 2 and 5 Kuna. The doctor examined me and said – “You have a cataract on both eyes, in advanced stages.” I thought there must be a mistake…
– They quickly made all the tests and the whole procedure since I entered the polyclinic to going home lasted for only two hours. For the first 24 hours you have an eye patch, after which you’ll have the perfect new vision, ready for new tasks – happily says Antonija, who has testified that everything was completely painless and performed under anesthetic instillation.
You feel like somebody is digging through your eye, but everything else is super fantastic and you get your lens made according to your eye. After surgery of the second eye, I felt some sort of dull pain for one day, which eventually stopped after a couple of painkillers. When I took off the eye patch and saw the tiles in the kitchen of my apartment, for which I thought were beige with black joints, but it turned out they were white with black dirt from the former tenants, I was shocked – admits Antonija , who also discovered the color spectrum.
Glasses with four cylinders
– I asked my husband does everybody see like this or it is just me that all colors are clear. I no longer wear glasses with 4 cylinders. I still have some slight diopter and I only need glasses for near distances, but now I’ll finally be able to recognize people passing by and say hello – said Antonija.
– In addition to the existing high astigmatism, cataracts in both eyes made life difficult for the patient. The cataract usually affects older people but can occur in young people after taking certain medications, eye trauma, certain systemic diseases, or as a complication of some diseases of the eye.
-The patient primarily wanted to remove the cataract, and because of her high astigmatism for which she had to wear glasses since childhood and did not see well, we decided to implement a toric intraocular lens – explains Dr. Aleksej Medić.
The process of implanting was not overly demanding, says Medić, who has over the past year made more than a thousand cataract surgeries. However, this operation was still very different in that it was necessary to be extremely precise in positioning the lens in the eye in order to neutralize the astigmatism.
– This operation is performed by the newest device that allows performing surgery through an incision smaller than 2.2 millimeter, which is very important with toric intraocular lens application because it does not create a so-called surgically induced astigmatism, so the postoperative recovery is faster and the quality of vision is better, which is extremely comfortable for the patients – said Dr. Medić, but warns that before the surgery is performed a series of consultations with an ophthalmologist are needed, to determine the type of astigmatism and to work out accurate biometric measurements with the help of modern technological devices.
Taken from: www.slobodnadalmacija.hr Author: Javorka Luetić