Guides, explainers and NRI planning notes

A “bionic eye” for macular degeneration is now a real treatment in Europe. The PRIMA system, made by Science Corporation, uses a tiny wireless chip placed under the retina and a pair of camera glasses to restore some central vision in people with advanced dry age-related macular degeneration (geographic atrophy). In its main trial, most […]

The next generation of cataract lenses is trying to do what your natural lens did when you were young: change focus smoothly from far to near. Accommodating and shape-changing IOLs, such as the OmniVu and Ocumetics lenses, aim to restore that flexibility rather than splitting light into fixed focus points. They are still in clinical […]

FLIGHT is a new laser treatment for open-angle glaucoma that creates tiny drainage channels inside the eye without any incision or implant. It uses a femtosecond laser guided by high-resolution OCT imaging to open precise pathways through the eye’s natural drainage tissue, helping fluid flow out and lowering eye pressure. The first commercial FLIGHT procedures […]

If you have both a cataract and early-to-moderate open-angle glaucoma, the two can often be treated in a single operation. During cataract surgery, the surgeon can place a tiny drainage device, such as the iStent inject W or the Hydrus Microstent, to help lower eye pressure. This approach, part of a group called MIGS (minimally […]

Femtosecond laser-assisted cataract surgery (FLACS) uses a computer-guided laser to perform some of the most delicate steps of cataract surgery: opening the lens capsule, softening the cataract and, in some cases, making the corneal incisions. Large trials show it is about as safe and effective as standard phaco surgery for most patients. Where it can […]

The best premium cataract lens in 2026 is the one that matches your eyes and your daily life. There is no single winner. EDOF lenses such as TECNIS PureSee and Clareon Vivity give strong distance and intermediate vision with few halos. Trifocal and full-range lenses such as PanOptix Pro, FineVision HP and TECNIS Odyssey give […]

Refractive lens exchange (RLE) replaces your eye’s natural lens with an artificial one to correct your prescription, including the need for reading glasses that starts in your 40s. It is the same operation as cataract surgery, done before a cataract has formed. For many people over 45 who want to reduce their dependence on glasses, […]

Most modern cataract lenses are made of one of two kinds of acrylic: hydrophobic, which repels water, or hydrophilic, which absorbs some water. Both are safe, well-tested materials. The differences show up in small ways: how the lens handles during surgery, how it behaves over decades, and, to a lesser degree than once thought, your […]

An enhanced monofocal lens is a cataract lens that gives the clear distance vision of a standard monofocal, plus a bit more range at arm’s length. That extra range is roughly where your laptop, car dashboard and supermarket shelves sit. TECNIS Eyhance from Johnson & Johnson and Clareon TruPlus from Alcon are two of the […]

RayOne Galaxy is a cataract lens with a continuous spiral on its surface instead of the rings used in most multifocal lenses. Rayner says the design gives a full range of vision, from distance to near, while keeping glare and halos low. The US FDA approved RayOne Galaxy and Galaxy Toric in late September 2026, […]

A daughter flew back to Melbourne five days after her mother’s cataract surgery last year, having done everything right during the visit — attended the consultation, sat through the procedure, arranged the first follow-up. Then, three weeks later, she called us in a slight panic because her mother mentioned her eye “felt a bit itchy” […]

The question we get most often from NRI families, usually somewhere in the third or fourth email once trust has built up a bit, is simply: “Okay, but what does this actually cost?” It’s a fair question, and one that’s genuinely hard to answer with a single number, because the honest answer depends on the […]

“My father says his eyes have gotten worse, but I don’t know if he needs surgery or just a new glasses prescription” is a message I get from NRI families almost weekly, usually followed by a slightly apologetic “sorry, I know this probably sounds like a silly question.” It isn’t. From abroad, without being able […]

A grandmother near our Lajpat Nagar centre mentioned to her daughter-in-law, visiting from Dubai with her 4-year-old, that the little girl seemed to “look sideways sometimes” when she was tired. The parents had noticed something similar but assumed it was just a habit their daughter would grow out of. It turned out to be an […]

A patient’s son messaged us from Toronto last month with a fairly common scenario: his father had been told he needed glaucoma surgery “soon,” but the family wasn’t sure whether that meant this month or sometime in the next year, and the local ophthalmologist hadn’t fully explained the reports in a way that made the […]

A patient’s daughter called our emergency line from London at 2 am her time last year, after her father in Gurugram described “something like a black curtain” coming down over part of his vision. She’d looked it up while still on the phone with him, found “retina detachment” and “emergency,” and had him at our […]

I had a patient last year whose glaucoma was picked up almost by accident — her daughter, living in the Bay Area, happened to mention during a routine call that their grandfather had gone blind from “high pressure in the eye” decades ago in Punjab, a detail nobody had thought to bring up during her […]

I get this question almost every time an NRI patient books a LASIK consultation during their India trip: “Can I get this done while I’m here for two weeks, and still enjoy the rest of the vacation?” The honest answer is usually yes — but “usually” is doing some work in that sentence, and the […]

We get a version of this question every week from families abroad: “My mother isn’t an Indian citizen anymore — does she need a visa to come in for cataract surgery, and what paperwork do we actually need from you?” It’s a fair question, and one that trips people up more than the surgery itself, […]

A patient’s son called me from Chicago last winter, three days before his mother’s cataract surgery, asking a question I get often from NRI families: “Which lens should we actually pick?” His mother was in my clinic in Lajpat Nagar; he was managing the decision over a WhatsApp call at 11 pm his time. That […]

Every year, the same pattern plays out across Delhi once the rains set in — one person in a household gets red, watery eyes, and within a few days, half the family or the whole office has it too. At our Lajpat Nagar centre, we see a noticeable jump in conjunctivitis cases through the monsoon […]

A patient called our Lajpat Nagar centre on a Sunday evening a few months ago, describing what she called “a shower of black dots” that had appeared in one eye within the space of an hour. She’d had ordinary floaters for years and almost didn’t call, assuming this was more of the same. It wasn’t […]

A patient in her late 50s came to see me at Paschim Vihar a few weeks ago, convinced her blurry vision meant she needed a stronger pair of glasses — again. She’d already changed her prescription twice in eighteen months, and it still wasn’t quite right. It turned out to be early cataracts, not a […]

Every 15th of August, I brace for the same pattern in the ER: a steady stream of two-wheeler riders, most of them young, coming in with a hand cupped over one eye, having no idea a piece of string caused this much damage. Last year, one of them was a delivery rider who’d ridden nearly […]