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Cataract Surgery and Lens Implants
About Your Eyes & Cataracts
In order to understand more about cataracts, cataract surgery and lens implants you will need to learn some “basics” of how your eyes function. Your eyes are actually a sophisticated optical system. As with any optical system, in order for it to function properly, light must be able to travel through its individual optical components without any obstructions. Your eyes have two primary optical components that are important for helping light focus on the retina to create vision-the cornea which is the clear curved dome like lens you can easily see on the front of the eye and the crystalline lens which is located just behind the iris and is only visible by using a specialized instrument called a slit lamp microscope to focus through the pupil, or the dark opening in the center of the iris or colored part of your eye.
Generally, if you are healthy and have not suffered from chronic eye infections, familial corneal problems or accidents, your cornea tends to maintain its clarity throughout life. However, the crystalline lens is likely to be subject to a number of changes that occur with age and can affect the quality of your vision.
Usually by the time you are forty years old, and certainly for people between the ages of forty to sixty years old it is expected that you will begin to experience some vision changes that are the result of the aging of the crystalline lens.
This is true even for people who have the good fortune of having “good eyes “ and “normal vision” throughout life up until that point. First, it is most common to have a loss of flexibility of the crystalline lens, called Presbyopia, which causes difficulty with reading and close vision. Second, with increasing age, it is common to experience a loss of transparency and optical clarity of the crystalline lens, which may cause a cataract to form.
About Presbyopia
Presbyopia commences at around age forty and progresses until about age sixty five. Prior to the age of about forty, the crystalline lens is both “crystal “ clear, pliable and flexible. It is this characteristic of flexibility that allows the crystalline lens to change its shape and alter its curvature so that it can help you focus your vision at various distances-from far, to near, to arms length, to far or near again. This flexibility gives you the ability to see things at all distances.
As we age, and especially noticeable by the time we begin our forties, the crystalline lens begins to lose its flexibility and become stiff. The gradual stiffening of the crystalline lens makes it more difficult for us to change the focus of our vision and thus to see clearly at all distances. Generally, this first becomes obvious when it decreases our ability to see clearly up close so that we have difficulty reading small print. This loss of flexibility and the associated difficulty with close vision is called Presbyopia-a normal and expected effect of aging that affects everyone.
Typically, if you are beginning to become presbyopic you will find that your “arms have become too short” and that you must hold reading material further away in order to see it clearly. With the onset of Presbyopia, even if you have had normal vision throughout life, you will find that you need reading glasses or bifocals in order to read and see up close. If you already wear eyeglasses for distance, you will find that you may need bifocals or trifocals in order to see comfortably up close.
Presbyopia even affects those people who have cataracts. Fortunately there have been advances in cataract surgery and lens implant surgery that allow for the correction of Presbyopia. Today, patients can elect to have presbyopia correcting multifocal lens implants so that lens replacement surgery can help you achieve clear distance vision as well restore your normal range of vision without being dependent on bifocals or trifocals.
About Cataracts
As you enter your fifties and sixties it is common for the crystalline lens to slowly become yellow and cloudy. At first you might think that the mild blurring the yellowing and clouding of the crystalline lens causes means that you simply need a change of eyeglass prescription. As the crystalline lens continues to lose its clarity you may notice that your ability to see well in dim illumination such as for night driving is decreased and that colors appear to be faded. Sometimes the clouding of the crystalline lens can also cause you to be sensitive to glare and somewhat light sensitive overall. If the clouding becomes significant enough it may begin to impair both your night and day vision, making you quite uncomfortable. In general, these are the symptoms experienced by people who have cataracts.
If you are in your fifties or sixties and have noticed vision changes such as are described here, it is necessary to schedule a comprehensive eye examination and cataract consultation by calling us at 845.454.1025.
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