With June being Cataract Awareness Month Davis Vision Center has been promoting patient education about the signs of cataracts and how they can prevent them.
While Davis Vision Center is one of the leading providers of LASIK surgery in Utah, we also specialize in cataract surgery for patients with cloudy or dark vision. We emphasize to patients that prevention for cataracts is important, and knowing the signs and symptoms of cataracts will help them enjoy better vision.
Cataracts typically affect our older senior patients, but it’s not unheard of to have younger patients who have developed cataracts due to injury or excessive sun exposure. The difficult part about cataracts is that they are usually developed gradually, which makes it difficult for the patient to realize that their vision is steadily declining. That’s why we feel it’s important to educate our patients on what to look for so they can be aware of it if they begin to develop cataracts. It’s not only a matter of enjoying optimal vision, but can also be a matter of safety as well if they are living with impaired eyesight without realizing it.
Cataracts are essentially the clouding of the lens of the eye. As this clouding becomes denser, it restricts the amount of light that can enter the eye. Cataracts are typically a natural cause of aging, with a large number of people over age 75 experiencing cataracts in a least one eye to some extent. However, if people don’t know the signs and symptoms of cataract development, they commonly go years with poor eyesight until they are nearly blind due to their cataract problem. Some of the most recognizable symptoms of cataracts are cloudy or fuzzy vision, difficulty seeing at night, double vision, seeing halos around lights, and loss of color intensity. One of the main causes of early cataracts is extended sun exposure, which is why proper eye protection in the sun is vital.
While even 30 years ago cataract surgery used to be somewhat crude and leave patients to rely on thick-lens glasses for the rest of their lives, today, cataract surgery is fairly simple and practically painless. Patients are provided with numbing eye drops before the surgery so all they feel is slight pressure and movements instead of pain. We use the latest tools and technology to make an incision in the eye, break up the clouded lens, and replace the lens with a man-made version that can provide patients with perfect vision for the rest of their lives. The entire process for cataract surgery takes less than an hour, and patients are free to recover in the comfort of their own home.
We look forward to Cataract Awareness Month each year because it gives us an extra chance to let people know that they don’t have to live with poor vision just because of cataracts. There are so many advanced options available to make sure patients enjoy optimal eyesight that allows them to live life to its fullest.
