An Oldie but a Goodie

These days, I do most cataract surgery with anesthetic eye drops and some anesthetic injected into the eyeball during surgery. Previously, it was common to put anesthetic behind the eyeball with an injection, which is a technique I now use more rarely, especially for long surgeries.

Sometimes, patients have very deep set eyes that are “sunken in” deep behind their eyebrows and cheeks. Doing surgery on such eyes is somewhat tricky just because the eyes are deep and sunken in behind the rest of the face.

One trick for those with deep set eyes is to put anesthetic behind the eye just to “fill up” the volume to push the deep set eye forward. That can make the trickier surgery more routine!