An insidious eye disease
When we talk about cataracts, we are referring to clouding of the lens of the eye. It is an eye disease that affects many people over the age of 60 and causes impaired vision. Other typical symptoms include feeling dazzled when moving from a dark room to a brightly lit one. In addition, some people with cataracts experience constant double vision. Unfortunately, cataracts are often a disease that creeps up on you. The transition from relatively normal vision to cataracts is often imperceptible over a long period of time, but it can also worsen within just a few weeks. The changes may be modest, but can still cause pronounced symptoms, and in Denmark, up to 50,000 Danes are treated for cataracts annually.
Who gets styes?
There are two different eye diseases that contain the word “stær” (star). A look in the Danish dictionary reveals that the word ‘stær’ originates from the verb “at stirre” (to stare), and the disease cataract is so named because, as the disease progresses, the pupil becomes grayish. Cataracts mainly affect people over the age of 60 and can be treated with minor surgery. As mentioned, cataracts are the result of age-related clouding of the lens of the eye, which is located immediately behind the iris. In some cases, cataracts can occur as a result of another eye disease. Another type of eye disease that has also been given the nickname “cataract” is glaucoma. Glaucoma is primarily hereditary, and this disease cannot be cured, but its progression can be delayed if intervention occurs early in the course of the disease. You can read more about this further down. If you have glaucoma in your family, you should therefore have your eyes checked regularly from the age of 40 onwards. Unlike cataracts, where the disease is located at the front of the eye, glaucoma is a disease that affects the optic nerve at the back of the eye.
How do you detect starlings?
Unlike cataracts, the symptoms of glaucoma are initially few and difficult to detect. The disease often starts with a few blind spots in the field of vision, which slowly increase in size. Many people only discover they have glaucoma when the visual defects are very advanced. The reason for this is that, for most of the course of the disease, the brain will go into a kind of survival mode, filling in the gaps in the visual impression with what it imagines should appear in these gaps. If you know that you have a genetic predisposition to developing glaucoma, you should have your vision and visual field checked regularly. We recommend that this be done from the age of 40 and older because the changes cannot be measured earlier.
Cataracts, on the other hand, have relatively clear symptoms, and since it is an age-related disease, many people are aware of the risk of developing it and therefore have their eyesight checked if they experience any of the symptoms. If you experience any of the symptoms: double vision, impaired vision, and glare, you can visit your local optician or doctor, who will be able to diagnose you or refer you to an ophthalmologist.
Treatment of cataracts and glaucoma
Unlike cataracts, glaucoma cannot be cured. However, you can prevent your vision from deteriorating if you detect glaucoma early on. This is why it is recommended that people with a family history of glaucoma have their eyesight checked regularly. Once the disease has been diagnosed, you will be able to administer the treatment yourself, which consists of eye drops that you must use daily. If you do this, your vision at the time of treatment can be preserved, and you can therefore retain much of your vision if the disease is diagnosed early enough.
Cataracts can occur in varying degrees of severity, and it is therefore up to you and your doctor to decide how and whether to treat them. If you are severely affected by cataracts, surgery is recommended. It is a minor procedure that can often be performed under local anesthesia and therefore without hospitalization. During the procedure, the cloudy lens will be replaced with an artificial lens, which will significantly improve your vision. Glasses are usually necessary after standard cataract surgery.
What is afterglow?
When performing cataract surgery, the lens capsule that holds the new artificial lens in place is preserved. In some cases, people who have been treated for cataracts experience blurred vision again. This blurring can take the form of blurred, cloudy vision or generally reduced visual acuity. This blurriness occurs in the lens capsule that has been left behind, and the blurriness can occur months to years after surgery. However, posterior capsule opacification can be treated just as well as cataracts with a quick, non-invasive treatment. The treatment is performed with a laser, is painless, and takes only a few minutes.