If you have a family member who has been diagnosed or treated for cataracts, you may be wondering, “What does life look like with cataracts?” Picture this: you wake up one morning and wipe your eyes, but the clarity of the world doesn’t snap into focus like you expect. Even though you can see light, everything is veiled and looks misty. For many people, cataracts can distort how they experience the world, starting more subtly but eventually becoming like a thick haze. Luckily, there are treatment options, including standard or custom cataract surgery, that can give patients their vision back.
What Exactly Is Life Like with Cataracts?
First off, let’s talk about how cataracts develop. When the proteins in the lens of the eye break down and then clump together, they can interfere with vision and cause a cloudy view. Typically, cataracts present themselves with age, but exposure to UV rays, smoking, diabetes, or eye injuries can accelerate their manifestation.
For those who are actively living with cataracts, their lives are impacted slowly as their vision quietly changes. You can think of it as a fog that rolls across a landscape and blurs the lines that used to be seen clearly.
Colors can lose their vibrance – white walls may appear yellowish, and you may not be able to see the contrast between light and shadow as well. If your eye is a window, imagine the window getting murkier with time. If you enjoy reading, you might find yourself squinting to see words or needing to increase font size on your phone or computer. While driving at night, patients may see distracting halos around headlights and street lamps, which can be dangerous.
A Quiet Isolation
More than just the symptoms, cataracts can lead people to change how much they engage socially. It is natural to find restaurants, family gatherings, or other loud settings overwhelming when you cannot see properly. Even more so, you may not realize how much you rely on facial cues until they are harder to read and recognize.
Even your hobbies that require you to see details, like painting, photography, and gardening, might make you feel like your eyes are betraying you. With the gradual decline, you do not even realize how much you give up as you force yourself to adapt to the symptoms.
When your world looks dull, it’s also possible that your sense of independence erodes and your emotional well-being suffers. Even studies have shown a correlation between cataracts and feelings of hopelessness or depression in older adults. For these reasons, it can be imperative to seek treatment.
Seeking Help
At some point, the effect of cataracts on your life and vision cannot be ignored. If any of the following symptoms sound familiar, it may be time to check in with an ophthalmologist:
- Cloudy, blurry, or dim vision
- Issues seeing at night or in low light
- Sensitivity to light or glare
- Halos around lights, especially while driving at night
- Fading or yellowing of colors
- Frequent changes in glasses or contact lens prescriptions
- Double vision in one eye
- Needing brighter lights for reading or detailed tasks
When you do go and see your physician, they will perform a thorough eye exam and decide whether cataract surgery is an appropriate option for you. If you proceed with cataract surgery, the surgeon will remove the natural, cloudy lens of your eye. They will use advanced ultrasound technology to break up and extract the lens through a tiny incision. Afterward, your eye surgeon will replace it with a clear intraocular lens (IOL). This lens can not only restore clarity to your vision but also potentially correct refractive errors like nearsightedness or astigmatism, depending on the type of lens chosen. The procedure only takes about 15 to 30 minutes, and recovery is with minimal downtime, with noticeable improvement within 1-2 days after.
Some patients who opt for custom cataract surgery might receive a premium IOL. Premium IOLs are designed for one’s specific eye shape, lifestyle, and vision goals. Regardless of which type you are considering, know that clear vision is possible if you look for it.
See an Ophthalmologist
Living with cataracts does not mean you need to resign yourself to a fate of cloudy vision. If you have questions about your vision, cataract surgery, and how it can give you your sight back, consult a board-certified ophthalmologist. Stop by our clinic today, and we will take good care of you.