Need advice about laser cataract surgery for my mom

[Winston]

Need advice! My mom needs laser surgery for cataracts in her eye. The eye doctor in Taiwan said there are several types of surgeries to choose from. One is free and covered by national healthcare plan, but it is not good quality surgery. Another level of laser surgery costs 15,000 NT, and another 30,000 NT, then there are treatments for 60,000 NT and the highest is 85,000 NT.

Which one is best? Are the expensive treatments worth the money? Of course the eye doctor is gonna recommend the more expensive treatments because they're the most profitable. But are they worth it? Or is the basic one covered by insurance enough?

The thing is, the eye doctor didnt have good communication skills. And my mom doesnt have good comprehension skills. So she could not understand what the difference was between the levels of treatments. And my parents are slow and cannot process too many details or technical terms. Lol. So they dont really understand what the differences are between those types of differences. And i am not sure i can understand technical or scientific terms in chinese either. Lol.

Also I'm not sure whether to trust private small eye care clinics. Arent hospital eye doctors more likely to be honest and ethical since they work in a large institution?

What do you all think? Any advice? Any of you deal with this situation before?

@momopi and @HouseMD, what do you think?

Thanks,
Wu family

[Yohan]

Need advice! My mom needs laser surgery for cataracts in her eye.
.....
Also I'm not sure whether to trust private small eye care clinics. Arent hospital eye doctors more likely to be honest and ethical since they work in a large institution?

Lasik surgery is not suitable for any 'private small eye care clinic'. Totally out of question.

Yes, I know several persons in their 60, 70s who decided to pay some money extra for LASIK and better quality new lens to put in their eyes and it is surely worth the extra money.

If you want to collect some more information, I can recommend you Thailand, Bangkok Pattaya Hospital.
This is the largest and most experienced international hospital in Pattaya area.

https://www.bangkokpattayahospital.com/ ... er-en.html

To ask for details and possible medical fees send them an email, in English - why not? Ask them. To ask costs you nothing.

[Winston]

Why go to Thailand? She can get it in Taiwan. I don't know where the laser surgery would take place. Probably in a center somewhere else, not in the small private clinic. So what's the difference in the different price levels? Taiwanese suck at communication and their bad vibes don't help either.

[Yohan]

I did not say she should go to Thailand.

However you were asking for information, if a higher quality is worth the price.

Thailand is known to be rather cheap, even in the most expensive hospitals for Lasik eye surgery, and only a short flight away from Taiwan.

There are plenty of Asians, Chinese also from Taiwan too of course, who prefer Thailand for medical treatment.

Plenty of tourists are in Thailand from everywhere, for dental services, eyes, cosmetic surgery and so on.
Medical tourism is a lucrative business in Pattaya area.

As I said, up to you, but asking for information is free, just send an email to compare offers. Why not?

[Winston]

Check this out. There may be eye drops now that can reduce cataracts. What do you think? Is this for real?

https://www.drdavidwilliams.com/how-to- ... -cataracts

http://www.can-c.net/

https://www.swansonvitamins.com/can-c-c ... -ml-liquid

https://www.claritycarnosineeyedrops.com/

[Yohan]

Check this out. There may be eye drops now that can reduce cataracts. What do you think? Is this for real?

No way!
I am not a medical doctor however.
It is not for real, just my opinion.

If the crystalline lens is grey due to age the only way which really helps is to remove this lens by surgery.

This can be done by laser or by surgical instruments if laser is not available.

It sounds so difficult but it was very simple even with my father, where laser and an artificial lens were still not available.
It took the medical doctor so many years ago less than 20 minutes, no pain at all.
The natural grey lens has to be broken up and then can be sucked out.

The artificial lens in the eye is not even really required, it can be replaced by eye-glasses, but nowadays it is easy to replace the natural grey lens with an artifical lens - price is from cheap to rather expensive, depending what quality you prefer.