Cataract Surgery and Blood Thinners

Many common medications are blood thinners or anticoagulants which prevent blood clots. The most common are coumadin, plavix, aspirin, and vitamin E. While these treatments are beneficial to blood circulation and are often essential to a person’s heart health, there’s an increased risk of bleeding with any type of surgery when a patient is on these medications.

Is Cataract Surgery Safe with Blood Thinners?

At SightMD, we use only the latest, most state-of-the-art technologies and techniques for any surgery we do. That’s especially true for cataract surgery where we rarely use needle injections or even stitches to help your eyes. The procedure is over very quickly and requires only a small incision – approximately 2-3 millimeters. We also offer advanced laser technology for a minimally invasive procedure. With these techniques, the risk of bleeding is very low, even with blood thinning medication in the body.

It is important that you speak to your primary care doctor before any procedure. If they confirm that it would be safe to temporarily stop blood thinners, we usually recommend doing that to eliminate any possible risk factors. If it’s not safe to do so, our doctors are comfortable doing cataract surgery on patients that are on anticoagulation medicine. Your safety is our top priority and we will do everything we can to give you the best results possible.