Cataract: What Is It?
When the typically clear lens in your eye gets blurry, a cataract is formed.
Light travels through a transparent lens and is seen by your eye. Your iris is hidden by the lens (colored part of your eye). Your brain and vision can combine to convert information into a picture thanks to the lens’s ability to concentrate light.
Your eye cannot concentrate light the same way when a cataract covers the lens. It results in hazy vision or other types of visual loss (trouble seeing). Your vision may alter depending on where and how significant the cataract is.
Different Types Of Cataracts
Cataracts can be caused by aging, congenital conditions, secondary conditions, and trauma.
- The normal aging process brings on age-related cataracts.
- When cataracts are present at birth owing to an infection, an accident, or problems with fetal development, this condition is known as congenital cataracts.
- Secondary medical disorders like diabetes might lead to secondary cataracts. Additionally, exposure to hazardous agents like radiation or UV light can cause secondary cataracts or use certain drugs, like diuretics.
- An eye injury brings on last traumatic cataracts. Additional risk factors for cataract development include increased UV radiation exposure, smoking, and strong alcohol use.
What Are the Cataract’s Symptoms and Signs?
The following are the most noticeable cataract symptoms:
- The vision that is hazy, overcast, or foggy
- Having difficulty seeing items that are nearby or close, especially for older persons
- a lack of night vision
- heightened glare sensitivity
- color perception issues
- Frequently changing prescriptions for contact lenses or glasses
- vision in the damaged eye is double.
Why Can LASIK Not Correct Cataracts?
Cataracts cause your eyesight to become blurry or foggy and are commonly present in adults over 65. LASIK cannot treat cataracts since they are a condition of the lens. If you have an opacity, you should be observed by a cataract expert to see when cataract surgery might be suitable. After cataract surgery, LASIK may be an option if vision correction is still necessary.
So, only cataract surgery could treat cataracts, not LASIK surgery.
What Factors Are Involved In Lasik And Cataracts?
There are additional visual problems that many cataract patients experience that can affect their eyesight. In addition to clouding, conditions like astigmatism, nearsightedness, farsightedness, “over 40 vision,” or presbyopia can make it difficult to focus at a distance or distance.
The light entering the eye cannot focus correctly on the retina when the cornea is misshaped; this is known as a refractive error. Instead, it might concentrate in front of or behind the retina’s surface, leading to astigmatism, nearsightedness, and other visual impairments. It is fixed with LASIK by altering the cornea.
However, LASIK cannot be “corrected” or “reversed” cataracts. The cataract, which clouds the eye’s natural lens, must be surgically removed to restore vision. Because of this, ophthalmologists frequently are unable to treat cataracts using LASIK eye surgery. (Congenital cataracts that have been stable for an extended period and are too tiny or moderate to damage vision would be one possible exception.)
The good news is that if the cataracts are removed, LASIK could be an option; however, one of the numerous LASIK alternatives might be better suitable.
What Is Cataract Surgery?
Cataract surgery is one of the most famous and influential surgical procedures, where problems are rare. Even the most frequent side effects after cataract surgery may be managed and don’t affect eyesight permanently. Cataract surgery involves the removal of your eye’s clouded native lens and its replacement with an intraocular lens. The lens capsule, a transparent, thin membrane that covers the native lens, is left intact throughout the procedure. Within this capsular pocket is the intraocular lens.
Most cataract surgeries are performed using topical anesthesia, which is rapid, painless, and supplied by eyedrops. The entire treatment necessitates a brief hospital stay of around 2-3 hours. Patients with cataracts must use eye drops an hour before surgery to dilate their pupils. The cataract surgery is finished in only ten to fifteen minutes. After the process, the patient is kept in the hospital recovery room for observation for up to an hour. All the information is provided on how to care for the eye and apply eye drops.
What Is The Difference Between Lasik Surgery & Cataract Surgery?
If you need to get any of these surgeries done, you must first know the difference between the two and go ahead with your decision.
- The eye’s outer layer of the cornea is altered during LASIK to transform how the eye focuses light on the retina. Contrarily, cataract surgery is a procedure done on the eye’s lens. Patients with cataracts experience clouding of the natural lens of the eye. The clouded lens is separated during surgery and is swapped out for an intraocular lens, or IOL.
- While cataract surgery is usually performed on the right and left eyes separately on two consecutive days, LASIK is typically performed on both eyes in the same session.
Can Laser Eye Surgery cause Cataracts?
Cataracts are not brought on by LASIK. For those who have previously undergone LASIK, cataracts can be addressed. The patient should get cataract surgery rather than LASIK if they currently have cataracts impairing their eyesight.
