Cataracts and Cataract Surgery
By April | December 4, 2007
Did you know that over 60 million people around the world have cataract. It’s the number one cause of blindness, luckily however, it is completely treatable with cataract surgery.
What is Cataract?
They eye’s lens over time can become cloudy and opaque. When people become older, the protein levels in the eye start to decrease meaning there is no way to prevent cataract from forming. Normally they form due to age however head injuries and some diseases can cause this problem.
Cataract comes in 3 different forms, each of which affects you eye in a different way. At the center of the lens is the nucleus and the most common of the cataracts affects this region. Cortical cataract and subcapsular cataract are more common in people who suffer from diabetes.
Symptoms of Cataract
The most obvious symptom of cataract is blurred or cloudy vision. Problems with nearsightedness can become worse and images can turn distorted. More subtle symptoms include: requiring more light than normal when reading, problems seeing at night, sensitivity to light, colors fading and double vision. These symptoms occur because the cloudiness on the lens interferes with light refracting properly.
Who is at risk?
No-one is immune to developing cataract and chances of developing this condition will only increase with age. If there are people in your family who have developed cataracts then you have an increased chance too.
Some medication including steroids can increase you chances along with eye surgery and eye injury. Diabetics will are also at increased risk.
Early Detection and Treatment
The best way to detect problems is by having regular eye examinations. Blurred vision can be caused by a number of different things so it’s important to be properly checked out.
In the past if a patient had cataract they would have to endure painful surgery to rectify the problem. Thankfully cataract surgery has come a long way and simply involves replacing the cloudy lens with an intraocular lens (IOL). Success rate is extremely high.
It is only recommended that you undergo treatment when it interferes with your quality of life. Early stages of cataract can normally be dealt with by prescription eyeglasses. An ophthalmologist can determine the stage at which cataract surgery is necessary.
Unfortunately if you do have cataract there may be other factors involved which means surgery cannot restore vision. Only ophthalmologist can determine this.
Compared to many other types of surgery, cataract surgery goes very smoothly. 95% of patients experience no complications whatsoever. Local anaesthesia, tiny instruments and a microscope are normally all that’s needed to perform successful cataract surgery.