Cataracts can cause a variety of symptoms. The most common is blurry vision that doesn’t get better with blinking. Many patients also describe difficulty with glare and haloes around lights, which is often noticed as trouble driving at night because of oncoming headlights. Cataracts can also make it difficult to see in dim lighting. An under-appreciated symptom is the muddying of colors; I often hear patients exclaim how much brighter colors are following cataract surgery. A common reaction is “I can’t believe what I was missing!”
To find out if you have cataracts, you need to visit an eye doctor, either an optometrist or ophthalmologist. Dr. Potthoff is an ophthalmologist in Traverse City, MI and also performs cataract surgery. At your visit with the eye doctor your eyes will be dilated, this is the only way to examine your eyes to see if a cataract has formed.
If your eye doctor determines that you have a cataract, you essentially have two options. You can either leave it alone or opt to have cataract surgery. This is an important discussion to have with your eye surgeon. If you choose to observe and not have surgery yet the cataract will likely continue to worsen, although the timeframe in which this happens can be quite variable. Some people can go years before their cataracts get bad enough that they elect to have surgery, while other cataracts can get significantly worse in a matter of months. Learn more about cataract surgery here.
You must be logged in to post a comment.