Cataract Formation

Your eyes are fitted with a natural lens that gradually changes from clear to cloudy over time. Your lens is full of naturally occurring proteins and collagen. As you age, the lens begins to cloud, which means that light can’t easily reach the retinas. This causes colours to appear dull, or for lights to create halos or glare. Eventually, your lenses would cloud over completely, becoming opaque if left untreated.

Cataract Surgery

Although cataracts are painless, that doesn’t mean they’re not frustrating. Driving at night, reading books or texts, or looking at photos can be challenging or impossible. Prescription glasses can help at first but as they progress it may be necessary to have cataract surgery.

How Cataract Surgery Works

Cataract surgery takes 10 to 15 minutes per eye to perform, with up to a month of recovery time. Each eye is operated on separately, giving the first eye a chance to heal before the second eye is undertaken. There are seldom any complications to this outpatient procedure.

The surgeon removes the original lens from your eye through a small incision and replaced with a new, intraocular lens (IOL). This new lens sits behind your iris and pupil and can include vision enhancing prescriptions to correct for myopia, hyperopia, astigmatism or presbyopia.

Ask an optometrist at Stonebridge about managing your cataracts.