Squint eye surgery is quite a common surgery at Eye Solutions in Mumbai. Quite naturally, one of the most common questions at the time of consultation is ” Squint eye surgery cost in Mumbai ?”. Squint is also known as strabismus, and thus squint surgery is also known as strabismus surgery.
Pediatric Ophthalmologists do squint surgeries in both children and adults. Squint training is an essential part of Pediatric Ophthalmology training, and thus, all over the world, eye muscle surgery is performed by Pediatric Ophthalmologists.
As you are aware, the eyes are misaligned in a squint. As surgeons, we move the eye muscles responsible for eye movement. Once these muscles are moved, the equilibrium changes and the position of the eyes change, and they achieve alignment. The muscles that we operate upon are usually not weak eye muscles. However, sometimes a squint occurs because of a weaker muscle compared to another stronger muscle.
Usually, the squint surgical correction takes 45 min to 90 min. Usually, both eyes are operated upon. Aftercare involves placing eye patches on the eye that undergo surgery. If both eyes undergo squint operation, we remove one patch in a few hours. The other is removed 7-8 hours later.
Usually, squint surgery has no risk of loss of vision. There can be double vision after the surgery for a week or so. This double vision usually disappears by the end of the second week. The success rate of squint surgery is usually around 80% which means that 80% of the time we operate, we will not need a second squint eye to achieve ocular alignment.
Squint surgery is performed before or after Lasik. But it is preferred to perform squint surgery after Lasik because once high eye powers or refractive errors are corrected, strabismus measurements become more accurate.
For most, not all, surgery remains the only option for squint treatment which is valid for both children and adults. Your eye surgeon would explain in more detail what exactly will be done. Less commonly, eye exercises may solve the problem.
Six muscles are responsible for eye movements in each eye. Strabismus surgery involves moving one or more muscles in one or both eyes.
These muscles are divided into horizontal muscles, vertical muscles and oblique muscles. For now, let’s not get into what each of these muscles does. If you would like to know more, read about squint here.
So based on the muscle we operate upon, we call our squint eye surgeries horizontal muscle surgery or vertical muscle surgery. Here the obliques would be considered as vertical muscles. Obliques are operated upon for conditions like superior oblique palsy.
There are a few other types of strabismus surgeries that your surgeon may mention to you, like Transpositions and adjustable squint suture surgery.
The cost of surgery would depend on the following factors
1) Types of strabismus
2) Type of surgery done for the misalignment of eyes
3) Location of the hospital
4) Is your eye doctor a squint specialist.
5) Experience of your ophthalmologist
6) Is the surgery for squint performed in a child or for strabismus in adults
7) Is it the first time that you are getting a squint surgery, or is it a revision surgery
As mentioned previously, a squint can be of various types. A horizontal squint would be cheaper than treating a vertical squint. Also, if there is a squint because of nerve palsy, then the squint surgery is more challenging, which would again affect the cost of the squint surgery.
A horizontal muscle surgery would be cheaper than a vertical muscle surgery. Similarly, if there is a transposition or an adjustable suture surgery, it would be more expensive than a horizontal muscle surgery. Of course cost of surgery would depend on the number of muscles to be operated on. The more the muscles, the higher the cost of squint surgery in India.
Getting a squint surgery in Mumbai would be more expensive than getting surgery in a smaller town. In fact cost of squint surgery would also differ in different parts of a city like Mumbai. The cost of real estate, the hospital’s service, inpatient care, and the time doctor spends with you would all affect the price of squint surgery. Here are our two hospital locations.
If your doctor has undergone specialised training in treating squints or strabismus, the cost of squint eye surgery would be higher. You are, after all, going to be a better-trained person for your eye condition. That doctor has spent a good two years specialising in a particular field of eye care.
Even if you have gone to a specialist, the more years of doctor’s experience, the higher squint surgery cost. Frankly, this is true with any service you purchase and so on with squint surgery. The years spent fine-tuning the surgical skills by your doctor may cost you more for your treatment. This experience leads to a few advantages—minor bleeding during the surgery and less pain post-surgery. Even before surgery, your examination would be more accurate. This examination involves measuring the squint in the clinic with the help of prisms and some other tools. These additional tools check for things like depth perception or what is known as binocular vision. The experience of your doctor also affects the time for surgery. If the surgery has taken a long time and that too unnecessarily, then, of course, that is not desirable. Of course, the more experienced your doctor, the better the procedure’s success rate.
We operate a lot on children because strabismus or misalignment of eyes is often seen in children. As expected, children would be scared of the surgery and need to be put under general anaesthesia to undergo surgery. The process would need additional drugs and the presence of a skilled anaesthetist for the surgery. It would also need 4-5 hours of hospital stay after the surgery while the child comes out of the anaesthesia. Adults, on the other hand, don’t require general anaesthesia. For anaesthesia in adults, we administer local anaesthesia, given by injections around the eyes. Thus surgery for children would cost you more than surgery for adults.
Squint can recur. This treatment is not a permanent surgery. Of course, it may be in many patients, but not in all. Yes, that is an unfortunate truth. A second or third surgery is technically a more complex surgery. It also means that your doctor would have to be skilled enough to operate on the squint which has recurred. Primary surgery is much easier and than any additional surgery.
Before I continue, Eye Solutions has two branches in Mumbai. These are at Kemps corner and Churchgate. The cost of squint surgery ranges from Rs 60000 for one or both eyes to Rs 130000 for both eyes. As mentioned earlier, a few factors would affect the total cost, and once we examine our patients for their misalignment of eyes, we would be able to give them a clearer idea of their total costs. At Eye Solutions, we give our patients all the necessary eye drops and ointments needed after surgery. We check on our patients every day after the surgery and see them as often as is necessary after surgery. These post-op visits are not charged for and are included in the surgery charges.
I think in today’s world, it would not be wrong to ask your surgeon about the training they have received or the number of surgeries they have done. However, if there is hesitation in asking, one can always check online and confirm your doctor’s education. One can even go through the testimonials that the doctor has.
Many like myself take many pictures before and after surgery, and I think modern-day medicine allows you the freedom to ask your surgeon to show you pictures of their before and after squint surgery. The identity of those patients is always confidential.
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If you have a squint and want to get it corrected please send us photos of your face and eyes on [email protected]
I have squint in the left eye and I am send my pictures