Cataracts affect over 20 million Americans over the age of 40. Worldwide, it’s the leading cause of blindness, and as you get older, your risk of developing cloudy eye lenses increases.
Why? Over time, proteins within the lenses of your eyes break down, causing a normally clear lens to cloud over, first dulling — and then blocking — normal vision.
Dr. Randa Garrana and our team at Advanced Lasik specialize in cataract care, including lens replacement surgery using the best intraocular lenses for your vision condition. It’s one of the most common surgical procedures performed in the country.
To help you better understand what happens to your eyes when you have cataracts, we’ve prepared this primer to fill you in on the condition, its progression, and how it’s treated.
Cataracts can be primary, where they occur alone, or secondary, when they’re connected to another condition or disease. You might develop secondary cataracts in reaction to steroid medications, or as a complication of diabetes.
Cataracts form as a result of injury in some cases, possibly with damage to other eye structures as well as the lens. Traumatic eye injury and congenital conditions are two ways children may suffer from cataracts.
The most common type of cataract, however, is related to normal aging. Starting at about the age of 40, proteins start to change within your eye, turning normally clear tissue increasingly hazy and opaque.
These changes can happen in the middle of the lens, called the nucleus, in the cortex, which surrounds the nucleus, or in the inside of the lens capsule. It’s common to develop cloudy spots in more than one of these regions simultaneously.
Cataracts are generally considered a normal part of aging. There’s no reliable way to prevent cataract formation since there are many environmental, genetic, and medical risk factors that contribute to the protein changes in the lens.
Environmental risk factors include:
Medical risk factors that contribute to cataracts include:
Genetic risk factors include having immediate family members who developed cataracts early in life. Heredity can contribute to both age-related and congenital forms of the condition.
Unfortunately, there’s also no way to predict whether you will notice clouding from cataracts earlier or later in life. Fortunately, cataract surgery is routine, safe, and effective for restoring clear vision.
Worried about cataracts? Contact Advanced Lasik in the Midtown East section of New York City or Long Beach, California, to request a cataract consultation today. Clearer vision can be yours soon.
