Cataract – what is it and how is it treated?

Have you ever wondered what it means when someone says that they see as if they have a curtain (cataract), i.e. a curtain in front of their eyes?

As the natural aging process of the whole organism takes place, so does the human eye and vision problems occur. If your vision begins to blur, your light colors fade, and you see blurred, especially at night, it may be a sign that your natural lens is slowly blurring and a cataract is forming. If your grandparents have a white pupil, it is a sign of a mature cataract.

It can be congenital, occur as a result of trauma, metabolic diseases, use of certain drugs, high blood pressure, etc. It usually appears after the age of 60, but it can also appear in younger people.

Author: Dr. Zlatko Arnaudovski, specialist ophthalmologist and medical director

How is eye cataract treated?

Unlike certain eye diseases, cataracts cannot be treated with therapy such as drops, ointment, pills, or eye exercises. The only way it can be removed is with surgery, i.e. with the world-famous FAKO method, which makes a small incision in the eye itself and with the help of ultrasound the natural lens is removed and a new intraocular lens is implanted. It is a safe and short intervention, which is done with local anesthesia.

Nowadays, cataract surgery also removes diopters.

Intraocular lenses are the most modern eye implants that, in addition to removing the blurred lens, also correct diopters. With them, the patient receives two benefits – clear, vivd, colorful vision without diopters. There are several types of intraocular lenses and their choice depends on the patient’s desire and the anatomy of the eye, which is determined based on the examination. From intraocular lenses, we always single out the multifocal lenses that provide near, far and middle vision, greater contrast sensitivity and diopter correction, and with the toric lens, the cylinder is also corrected. Apart from cataract surgery, these lenses are also used in refractive surgery in those cases when due to a certain condition of the eye, the patient is not a candidate for laser diopter correction.

Cataracts are operated on only once in a lifetime!

The first attempts to intervene and treat cataracts began in ancient times, and the first operation was performed in 1748 in Paris. At that time, these surgeries were performed exclusively on an immature cataract, because only in that way they could remove the curtain as a whole, but the eye suffered great trauma and was more difficult to heal. Overripe cataracts lead to blindness if left untreated.

It is advisable to remove it while it is in the initial stage because the eye suffers less trauma and the postoperative recovery is short. The most important thing is that the intervention is performed by a professional and experienced surgeon who is familiar with this method, to whom the patient can be entrusted and to be performed with quality materials, because cataracts are operated only once in a lifetime.