Healthy Living: Cataracts
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The first symptoms of cataracts are subtle. Obvious signs include frequent changes to your eye glass prescription and your night vision may also be affected.
"Increasing difficulty with dawn, dusk, night evening driving, especially weather rain on the road," said Dr. Zieker.
Someone with a cataract may describe it as looking through a cloudy lens.
"Essentially the lens on your eye is not clear anymore and there are degrees, so you can have mild cloudy moderate, severe," said Dr. Zieker.
Removing a cataract requires micro-incisions and the lens is gently vacuumed out. One eye is done at a time. The new lens implant is made up of either silicone or acrylic. The surgery takes about twenty minutes.
“It's called micro or small incision, also suture-less, no stitches, it's painless," said Dr. Zieker.
Most patients can see clearly within 24 hours. After care is essential and there can be complications, but they are very rare.
The technology has gotten so good that not only can cataract surgery allow you to see more clearly, it can fix varying degrees of poor vision, permanently.
“There is a certain power that we can measure for each individual and that is a lot of details, the micron levels, hundreds of millimeters, length of eye, curvature and once it's done, it is you will never again and the technology will last as long as you do," said Dr. Zieker.