CATARACTS
What is a Cataract?
A cataract is a clouding of the eye's crystalline lens, which is just behind the pupil and works with the cornea to focus light on the retina. Any clouding of the lens is a cataract whether there has been a significant reduction in vision or not. The most common symptoms of cataracts are blurring and dimming of vision. This can often appear as a persistent glare or filminess, especially when exposed to bright lights.
How are Cataracts Diagnosed?
Unfortunately, the primary symptoms of cataracts are shared with many other eye conditions. In order to ensure a proper diagnosis of your eye condition, a complete eye examination is required, including an examination of the front part of the eye including the lens with a biomicroscope (often called a slit lamp) and the back part of the eye with an ophthalmoscope.
How are Cataracts Treated?
Although certain types of congenital cataracts tend to remain stable, these are the exception rather than the rule. With most cataracts, visual impairment progressively worsens without treatment. Depending on your cataract diagnosis, our surgeons can tell you whether your cataracts are likely to progress slowly or rapidly as well as recommend and schedule an appropriate cataract surgery procedure.
In most cases where cataracts are the only issue, a modern cataract surgery procedure can lead to improved vision in more than 95% of cases. Our skilled surgeons are well-versed in a number of advanced procedures including the insertion of advanced technology lenses like toric and multifocal lenses. Using these innovative techniques and technologies allows our patients to have a speedier recovery time, which ensures a quick return to their daily activities, and enjoy significant improvement in their vision.
Will my Cataract Surgery require hospitalization and a long recovery?
While cataract surgery is a complex procedure, all of our cataract implant surgeries are performed on an outpatient basis. This allows for us to safely perform the procedure while limiting the impact on your daily routine as much as possible. While it usually takes several weeks for your eye to heal completely, most patients are able to return to office-type work within a few days and to manual labor after one week.
