Cataract

Treatment of Cataract

A cataract is the clouding of the lens of the eye. Though it can occur at any age it is the leading cause of vision loss in people over age 55. More than half of people over age 65 have some degree of cataract development.

 

Cause of cataract

Reasons may be prolonged use of steroids, exposure to ultraviolet and associated health problems like diabetes and eye injuries. A person with diabetes, smoke, or have a family history of cataract, excessive exposure to sunlight, serious eye injury or inflammation, prolonged use of steroids have increased risk of cataract.

 

Symptoms of cataract

When a cataract develops person feels blurry vision, faded colors, glare, difficulty in seeing at night and double vision, eye strain, headache and frequent change of glasses. One should not ignore the early symptoms and get a check-up of the eyes by an eye specialist. Ignorance may lead to complication.

 

Cataract Treatment

At the early stage of cataract, new eyeglasses, brighter lighting, anti-glare sunglasses, or magnifying lenses may help but if these measures don’t improve your symptoms, the only effective treatment is surgery, which involves removing the cloudy lens and replacing it with an artificial lens.

Surgery is the only known effective treatment for cataract removal and is one of the safest and most effective types of surgery, with a success rate of about 90 percent. All cataract surgeries are aimed at removal of the cloudy natural lens and replacing it with an Intra Ocular Lens (IOL). These lenses can be inserted through a small 1.8 to 2.8 mm opening. With this small incision, foldable lenses are implanted into the eyes. Thus there is no need for full-day admission, injection, stitch, and patching of the eye. One can go for surgery in any season and resume once duties on a very next day.