Cataracts account for the highest percentage of all eye diseases that cause blindness, at 47%, followed by glaucoma, keratoconus and fundus disease. Surgery is the only effective way to treat cataracts.
Due to outdated beliefs, many elderly people believe that cataracts can only be operated when they are “mature”. In fact, if not treated early, cataracts can lead to acute attacks of glaucoma. Glaucoma is one of the most serious eye diseases and can cause blindness.
So what are the symptoms of an acute attack of glaucoma?
The most prominent ones are rapid loss of vision, severe eye pain and headache, accompanied by nausea and vomiting, which are very painful. It is not uncommon for the symptoms of nausea and vomiting to be treated as acute gastroenteritis and delayed in clinical practice. This is a reminder to doctors in internal medicine and emergency medicine not to misdiagnose the disease. If the disease is treated at this stage of development, it will definitely make surgery more difficult and will inevitably leave sequelae after surgery.
Cataracts and glaucoma are two eye diseases, how can they be linked together?
In fact, it is not alarming that delaying cataract treatment will induce glaucoma. During the development of cataract, the volume will keep increasing, absorbing and expanding, and the space inside the eye becomes crowded, resulting in obstruction of atrial outflow and a sharp increase in intraocular pressure, i.e., an acute attack of glaucoma.
Therefore, with cataracts, it is important to have surgery as early as possible.