Cataract Surgery
Austin, Texas
As we age, the eyes can change in several ways, and one of these changes is known as cataracts. Cataracts occur in the eye’s crystalline lens, which is suspended behind the iris (colored area). In a normal eye, light enters through the cornea, the clear front surface of the eye. It travels to the lens and passes through it. Both the cornea and the lens bend that light to focus it on the retina, the “camera film” of the inside back surface.
Clear vision depends on a variety of things, but the one relevant here is the transparency of the lens. If something blocks the light from arriving at the retina, we do not see. Cataracts block the light.
How Cataracts Can Cause Severe Visual Impairment
The lens is made primarily of water and proteins. In an aging lens, the proteins can start sticking together in microscopic little clumps. These clumps (cataracts) are not transparent and each one blocks a little of the incoming light. As time passes, they enlarge and block more light. The retina is filled with light-sensitive cells, many of which detect colors. As more light is blocked, we see less color, since the retinal cells are receiving less image information. Blurry vision increases. Cataracts do not go away once they start forming. They will continue to progress, and eventually, severe visual impairment will occur if nothing is done.
Intraocular Lenses
No procedure can remove the cataracts from the lens. Instead, cataract surgery removes the lens from the eye and replaces it with an artificial lens known as an intraocular lens (IOL). There a couple of very small incision outside the field of vision, and the new lens is positioned inside the same pocket that previously contained the natural lens.
In past years, artificial lenses had only one focus. They were set for far distance vision or near distance vision, and glasses or contacts were necessary to give clear vision at whichever distance the lenses did not treat. However, now there are both multifocal and accommodating lenses available which give clear vision at near, intermediate, and far distances. Many people need no further vision correction.
At Howerton Eye Clinic, we offer ReSTOR® and ReZoom™ which are multifocal IOLs.
The Eye’s Accommodative Ability
When you switch focus from the computer screen to something outside the window, the eye’s lens is changing its curvature. Tiny muscles control it, making it more convex for near objects and less convex for distant objects. When it is more steeply curved it can bend incoming light more sharply, which focuses nearby objects clearly on the retina. When it is flatter, it bends incoming light less sharply to focus far objects clearly.
When the eye’s lens is removed, so is this accommodative ability.
Multifocal IOLs use proprietary technologies to mimic it and give you clear vision both near and far. They have concentric steps or zones built into them, each of which reacts to light differently.
In these days of sophisticated vision technology there is no need to suffer from cataracts. If you have not had your eyes checked for a while, it would be well worth it to do so. Other diseases can happen silently too, such as glaucoma and steal your eyesight gradually. It’s always best to catch problems early.
If you would like to learn more about the cataract surgery including IOLs we offer, and whether one of them would be a good solution to your vision problems, please contact the Howerton Eye Clinic in Austin, Texas to schedule a free consultation.
