Cataracts in eyes

• Seeing a bright ring or halo around the light in your eye
• Decreased night vision
• Double or “shadow” vision
• Difficulty seeing, even when wearing contact lenses or glasses
• Difficulty in distinguishing colors adequately
• Need to frequently change your eyeglasses or contact lens prescription
• Cataracts usually worsen over time. The more advanced the cataract, the greater the difficulty in seeing, and may affect one or both eyes.

One of the most common causes of cataracts in eyes is advancing age, the older you are the more likely you are to develop cataracts; in other words, the most common cataract is not a disease, it is a natural process that occurs with the passage of time.

Some other cataracts begin accompanying a disease of the body, or are the consequence of a stroke or eye surgery, and we call them secondary cataracts. There are also cataracts that you are born with or congenital cataracts, fortunately they are very rare.

Other risk factors are:

• Over 60 years of age
• Suffering from diseases such as diabetes mellitus, arterial hypertension or obesity.
• Constantly taking certain medications, such as cortisones or contraceptives.
• Traumatic eye injury and/or ocular inflammation
• Family history of cataract at an early age
• Smoking or excessive alcohol intake
• Frequent exposure to the sun or very intense light without eye protection.
• Having undergone eye surgery

The diagnosis can be made in consultation, by means of clinical history and eye examination. The doctor may enlarge (dilate) your pupil with eye drops to better see the cataract and look for other changes. It may also indicate some studies.

Treatment depends on the level of advancement of the cataract, i.e. how much opacity it has. You can:

• Wearing glasses or using stronger light
• Stopping or changing certain medications
• Have surgery if your vision is severely impaired

The best thing to do is to consult your doctor and together decide which is the best option. Each patient and each eye is a special and individual case.

Cataract surgery consists of removing the cataract and placing an intraocular lens inside the eye. That lens stays there for life. After surgery, you may need glasses with frames, either for better distance or near vision. It is important to mention that the surgery that replaces the eye’s original magnifying lensIn addition to cataract surgery, we often remove a non-opaque crystalline lens from the eye and replace it with an intraocular lens that usually corrects or improves distance vision as well as near vision (multifocal intraocular lens). This surgery is known as FACORREFRACTIVE.

The patient must be fasting, without make-up, accompanied by another adult, and in case of being under treatment for arterial hypertension, he/she must take his/her pill with very little water before going to the operating room. Above all, it is expected that the patient will come having already resolved all his doubts and knowing both the risks and the expected benefits of his surgery.

The surgery is performed under local anesthesia in an operating room. You will remain awake, accompanied at all times by an anesthesiologist who will administer medication to relax you. Only the eye to be treated is numbed. The surgery lasts approximately one hour. Upon completion, the patient can go home in most cases.

If you are allergic to medications or have any condition that requires special attention, you should inform each person you come in contact with on your way to the operating room.

Upon discharge from the hospital, he will wear a patch on the treated eye.

You will be unable to drive, so it is important that you are accompanied by another adult.

You will be asked to rest for the first few hours.

You are usually seen 24 to 48 hours after your surgery in the office to confirm that everything is going well. You will be asked to apply drops at a specific frequency after the patch is removed.

The recovery of his vision will be gradual and he is expected to return to his daily activities in no more than a week.