Doctor, they said I had cataracts, what should I do!
Don't panic, the formation of cataracts is inevitable as you age.
Cataract is the world's number one blinding eye disease, but it doesn't mean that cataract will cause blindness, let's talk about cataract together!
What is a cataract?
If the eyeball is a camera, then the lens is like a lens, helping us to see the world clearly through its focus on light. The lens is an important part of our eyeball, the lens is cloudy, the transparency of the loss is what we call cataract, after the lens is cloudy, the outside light can not enter the eye smoothly, there will be visual impairment and other symptoms.
Why do I get cataracts?
The occurrence of cataract is mainly age-related, age-related cataract mostly occurs in middle-aged and elderly people over 50 years old, due to the aging of the lens, protein degeneration, and lens opacity. In other words, cataracts can be developed by everyone, but the age and degree of onset are different for each person.
In addition, many causes such as metabolic abnormalities such as diabetes, developmental abnormalities, genetics, high myopia, the effects of drugs such as hormones, radiation such as ultraviolet rays, and trauma can cause cataracts or accelerate the progression of cataracts.
What are the symptoms of cataracts?
1) Vision loss.
The most common symptoms of cataract are ** and gradually worsening vision loss and blurred vision, especially some middle-aged and elderly people have blurred vision in the sun, and glasses cannot improve the level of vision.
2) Glare, monocular diplopia, or polyopia.
Patients will find that they cannot fully focus when looking at the light, and there is always a small tail, which is affected by the scattering of the uneven cloudiness of the lens.
3) Change in color of vision.
The increased absorption of the blue light end of the spectrum by the cloudy lens or the change in the color of the lens nucleus are related.
4) Changes in refractive state.
Some lens nuclear opacities will cause nuclear myopia, and the original degree of presbyopia will be reduced, and some people think that their presbyopia has been relieved, but it is possible that cataracts are secretly developing. Astigmatism may also occur if the degree of opacity inside the lens varies.
Therefore, after any of the above symptoms appear, you must not relax your vigilance, go to the hospital in time for a systematic examination, clarify the situation, and operate if necessary**.
Do cataracts have to be surgically surgified?
At present, there are some anti-cataract drugs in use on the market, but the efficacy is not certain, and it is absolutely impossible to ** cataract, so it is not recommended to blindly use eye drops** so as not to delay the best time for surgery.
Surgery is the most important way to perform cataract, usually under the operating microscope to perform phacoemulsification aspiration combined with intraocular lens implantation**, the surgical incision is small, the largest incision will not exceed 3mm, the recovery is fast and safe.
The lens plays a strong role in regulating the eye, helping us to see objects near and far, and many functions cannot be replaced by intraocular lenses, so not all cataracts need surgery once they are found, and do not wait for the cataract to "mature" before surgery**.
In the past, due to the limitations of technology and understanding, many elderly people waited until they could not see cataract before choosing surgery. At this stage, as long as the degree of cataract affects our daily life and work, the general visual acuity is 05 and below, you can choose to have surgery**, or although the visual acuity is 05 or more but the visual quality is very poor, such as glare, monocular diplopia and other changes, surgery can also be considered**. After cataract enters the mature stage, it may induce problems such as glaucoma and uveitis, resulting in irreversible damage to vision, and will greatly increase the difficulty of surgery, and the postoperative recovery effect is often unsatisfactory.
In addition, patients with glaucoma and fundus diseases also need to undergo cataract surgery according to the situation**, so the indication for cataract surgery should be determined based on the overall condition of the eye.
After the cataract, I can't see clearly?
Cataract surgery requires the removal of the cloudy lens, keeping part of the lens capsule, and implanting an intraocular lens in the bag, but after a period of cataract surgery, the residual lens epithelial cells in the capsule proliferate, forming a layer of opacity in the posterior capsule, just like a layer of pot ash in the bag containing the intraocular lens, which will cause us to have vision loss again after cataract surgery, which is what we call posterior cataract. You don't have to worry if you have posterior cataracts, you only need to receive YAG laser clinics**.
However, posterior cataract vision loss may not only be caused by cataract surgery, and it is still necessary to go to the hospital in time to rule out other diseases in the eye.
Cataract is not terrible, we must have a correct understanding of cataract, find symptoms such as vision loss, go to the hospital in time, and then decide whether surgery is needed after passing a professional and systematic examination**.