Cataract Surgery: Seeing Is Believing

More than fifty percent of people over the age of 60 suffer from cataracts – the clouding of the eye's lens that leads to decreased vision, like looking through a blurry, yellowy fog. In fact, cataracts are so common, it is believed that everyone will develop a cataract if they live long enough.

Cataract Causes

The lens of the eye is made of mostly water and protein. The protein is arranged in a way that keeps the lens clear and allows light to pass through it. A cataract forms when some of the protein clumps together and starts to cloud an area of the lens. A cataract won't spread from one eye to the other, although most people develop cataracts in both eyes at similar times.

There are several causes of cataracts, including:

• Aging (the most common cause)
• Smoking
• Diabetes
• Infection
• Injury
• Exposure to radiation
• Taking adrenal cortical hormones for a long time
• Excessive exposure to sunlight
• Birth defect

Symptoms

When a cataract is in the early stages, you may or may not notice slight changes in your vision. Cataracts tend to mature slowly. Vision gets worse gradually. Some people with a cataract find that their close-up vision suddenly improves, but this is temporary. Vision is likely to worsen as the cataract becomes cloudier. Because the decrease in vision is gradual, many people do not realize that they have a cataract until it is discovered during a routine eye examination.

Symptoms include:

• Cloudy or blurry vision
• Problems with light, including:
• Headlights that seem too bright at night
• Glare from lamps or very bright sunlight
• A halo around lights
• Colors seem faded
• Poor night vision
• Frequent changes in your eyeglass or contact lens prescription

These symptoms can also be a sign of other eye problems. If you have any of these symptoms, check with your eye care professional immediately.

Diagnosis

Although you might think you have a cataract, the only way to know for sure is by having an eye examination. To detect a cataract, an eye specialist examines the lens and may do other tests to learn more about the structure and health of your eye.

A comprehensive eye examination usually includes:

• Visual acuity test: an eye chart test that measures how well you see at various distances
• Pupil dilation: the pupil is widened with eye drops to see more of the lens and retina
• Tonometry: a standard test to measure the pressure inside the eye. Increased pressure may be a sign of glaucoma

Treatment

For an early cataract, vision may be improved by using different eyeglasses, magnifying lenses, or stronger lighting. If these measures don't help or if vision loss interferes with your daily activities, such as driving, reading, or watching TV, surgery is the only effective treatment.

Cataract surgery is almost never an emergency. Therefore, in most cases, waiting until you are ready to have cataract surgery will not harm your eye. However, your cataract will only get cloudier with time.

Cataract surgery is almost always performed in one eye at a time. After the cloudy lens is removed, the eye surgeon (ophthalmologist) places an intraocular lens (IOL) in its place. An IOL is a clear lens that requires no care and becomes a permanent part of your eye.

After cataract surgery, most people need reading glasses and many people need glasses for distance. There is a relatively new option, multifocal intraocular lenses, which focus for both near and far distance in the same lens. Many patients who receive multifocal intraocular lenses see well at both a distance and nearby without glasses.

Although every surgery has risks, the majority of patients who have cataract surgery have better vision afterward.

If you are diagnosed with cataracts, follow your doctor's instructions.

Aurora Offers Modern Cataract Surgery Alternative

Advances in cataract surgery techniques and intraocular lens (IOL) technology have significantly improved a patient’s risk and satisfaction with their vision after modern cataract surgery. Nearly three million procedures are performed every year and most of those patients say they experience a better quality of vision than before they developed cataracts.

For modern cataract surgery, most patients only require topical anesthesia in the form of eye drops. One the eye is numbed, an ophthalmologist makes a tiny, self-healing incision (requiring no stitches) in the cornea and breaks up the cataract into microscopic particles with a very gentle technique that uses sound waves and water. The microscopic particles are cleared away and a new lens, which is rolled up upon implantation, is fit through the incision. The lens then unfurls and moves into place where the previous cloudy cataract lens once occupied. The new lens stays in place due to the natural outward pressure within the eye.

Topical anesthesia and self-healing incisions are the driving forces behind modern cataract surgery. In most cases, patients may resume their normal activities almost immediately. It is important to note that patients do not have to stop taking their blood thinner medications as there is no blood loss associated with the new surgery. Also, there is no need for an eye patch after the surgery.

Success

According to the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery, more than 98% of cataract patients had their vision successfully improved after modern cataract surgery. Once removed, cataracts will not grow back. Results of the surgery are permanent which gives our patients a lifetime of better vision. Talk to your doctor to find out if modern cataract surgery is right for you.

Prevention

Although there is no way to completely prevent cataracts, the following precautions may help:

• Do not smoke
• Consume antioxidants (such as antioxidant vitamin supplements)
• Wear a hat and UV-protected sunglasses when outdoors

It is also important to get a comprehensive eye examination regularly. But since vision problems increase with age, if you are aged 60 or older, you should have a comprehensive eye examination once a year.