Cataracts

Cataract Surgery Mineola A cataract is a common condition that causes a clouding of the eye's natural lens, and affects millions of people each year, including more than half of all Americans over the age of 65. Cloudiness develops as a result of a buildup of protein in the lens.

Cataracts cause a progressive, painless loss of vision. The lens clouds naturally as we age, causing people over the age of 65 to see a gradual reduction of vision. However, cataracts are not considered part of the natural aging process and are a serious condition that requires prompt medical attention. The exact cause of cataracts is unknown, although it may be a result of injury, certain medications, illnesses (such as diabetes), prolonged exposure to ultraviolet light and smoking.

Diagnosing Cataracts

Your doctor may perform a series of tests in order to diagnose a cataract. A dilated eye exam will be performed to test the vision and to examine the condition of the lens and other parts of the eye. Your doctor may also perform tonometry, a procedure that measures the pressure in the eye.

Symptoms of Cataracts

Patients with cataracts often do not experience any symptoms when the condition first develops. Cataracts will continue to progress with no apparent pain, although patients may experience:

Blurred or hazy vision
Double vision
Poor vision in bright light
Seeing halos around lights
Poor vision at night
Yellowish tinged vision
Frequent changes in eyeglasses or contact lens prescription

Treatment of Cataracts

If visual impairment begins to interfere with your ability to read, work or do the things you enjoy, you may want to consider cataract surgery to restore your vision. Cataract surgery is the most commonly performed surgical procedure in the US, and can be performed quickly and easily with a success rate of over 90 percent and a minimal risk of complications.

Cataract Surgery

Cataract surgery is a minimally invasive procedure that involves numbing the eyes with anesthesia and then making a tiny incision into which an ultrasonic probe is inserted. The probe breaks up, or emulsifies, the cloudy lens into tiny pieces and then suctions them out of the eye. Once the cloudy lens has been removed, a new artificial lens is implanted into the eye. This lens is known as an intraocular (IOL) lens, and can often be inserted through the same incision that the old lens was removed from.

Surgery usually takes less than an hour to perform and is painless for most patients. After the procedure, a patch may be placed over the eye and you will be asked to rest for a while. Most patients are able to go home the very same day, although you will need someone to drive you home. For the next few days, you may experience itching, mild discomfort, fluid discharge and sensitivity to light and touch. Your doctor may prescribe eye drops to help the healing process and to reduce the risk of infection.

There are several different IOLs available to help each patient achieve the best possible results from his/her cataract surgery. Multifocal IOLs allow for full vision correction at near, intermediate and far distances, completely eliminating the need for eyeglasses or contact lenses in most patients. Some IOLs can also correct astigmatism.

These choices were not always available for cataract patients. In the past, cataract surgery only involved monofocal lenses, which could only focus on objects near or far, but could not adjust to accommodate varying distances. These patients still had to rely on glasses or contact lenses after surgery in order to see clearly at all distances, especially in older patients suffering from presbyopia.

Risks and Complications

If left untreated, cataracts will worsen over time and may lead to permanent vision loss or even blindness. It is important to see your eye doctor regularly in order to detect cataracts as early as possible and to plan an effective treatment method.

Although cataract surgery is considered safe, there are certain risks associated with any surgery. Some of these risks may include pain, infection, swelling and bleeding. Most patients undergo this procedure without any complications.

What is the Crystalens®?

Crystalens® is an accommodating intraocular lens that, unlike a standard IOL, can treat both a person’s cataracts and presbyopia- loss of near and intermediate vision. You probably noticed in your forties that you started to lose some of your up-close vision and had to start wearing reading glasses. Crystalens not only treats your cataracts (a clouding or hardening of your lens), but can also reduce or eliminate your dependence on glasses. It does so by recreating accommodation similar to your eye’s natural lens. The unique Crystalens can reduce or eliminate glasses for most activities, including: reading a book, working on the computer, and driving a car.

Crystalens was modeled after the human eye. Like the natural lens, it uses the eye muscle to flex and accommodate in order to focus on objects in the environment at all distances. Crystalens dynamically adjusts to your visual needs.

Crystalens is designed to allow the optic, or the central circular part of the lens that you see through, to move back and forth as you constantly change focus on images around you. Crystalens flexes as you focus your vision.

Crystalens® is:

The first and only FDA-approved accommodating intraocular lens
The only FDA approved intraocular lens that uses the natural focusing ability of the eye
The only FDA approved presbyopia-correcting IOL for cataract patients that provides a single focal point throughout a continuous range of vision

Few patients with Crystalens have experienced problems with glare, halos and night vision. Crystalens focuses only one image to the back of the eye, unlike a multifocal lens that projects multiple images, requiring your brain to “adjust” to the differences.

The effectiveness of the Crystalens® was proven in clinical trials:

Significantly more patients implanted with a Crystalens (88.4%) could see better at all distances then patients implanted with a standard IOL (35.9%)
Most patients have continued to report excellent vision 7 years after implantation with Crystalens. More than 100,000 Crystalens implants have been implanted worldwide, and that number is growing daily.

Crystalens accommodates like the natural lens. After implantation of Crystalens, most patients will see brighter and clearer from distance, intermediate to near like they did when they were younger.

ONLY FDA-Approved accommodating IOL, Crystalens was the first presbyopia-correcting IOL introduced into the United States market and is currently the only FDA-approved accommodating IOL. Crystalens addresses the limitations of standard monofocal IOLs and multifocal IOLs by providing the following advantages to patients:

Provides a Broad Range of Vision: Crystalens moves and changes shape using the eye's natural focusing mechanism, instead of remaining fixed and stationary within the eye. This movement, or accommodation, allows the eye to focus on objects across a broad range of distances to reduce or eliminate dependence on glasses. In particular, this accommodation provides significant advantages in addressing intermediate vision.
Maintains Clarity of Vision: Unlike multifocal lenses, Crystalens directs all available light received by the eye to a single focal point, comparable to that of a healthy natural lens.
Patient Adjustment Not Required: Crystalens produces a single image consistent with normal vision, meaning patients do not need to neuroadapt to viewing multiple images. Patients also do not need to tolerate or adjust to high levels of halos and glare often associated with multifocal IOLs.

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