Cataracts are still the leading cause of blindness in China, with about 400,000 new cataract patients each year. If cataracts are not treated early, they will gradually worsen and cause complications such as secondary glaucoma or even blindness in late stages. It is necessary to understand cataract correctly and treat it early. In today’s advanced technology, cataract surgery has become safer and simpler.
With the continuous development of the times, young people go out to work and most of the empty nest elderly are nestled at home and can only watch colorful TV programs, causing the elderly to overuse their eyes, resulting in symptoms such as visual fatigue, dry eyes, itchy eyes, burning foreign body sensation, blurred vision, vision loss, eye swelling and orbital pain. According to the data released by China Disabled Persons’ Federation, cataract is still the main cause of blindness in China, with about 400,000 new cataract patients each year. According to Vice President Tan Jilin, a cataract specialist at Aler Eye Chongqing Nanping Hospital, cataracts will gradually worsen if not treated early, and in advanced stages will cause complications such as secondary glaucoma and even blindness. It is necessary to understand cataract correctly and treat it early.
“When an egg is cooked, it is impossible for the egg white to change back to its original liquid form, so for cataracts, drugs are not very useful, and the most effective is surgery.” Vice President Tan Jilin said that many people have an innate fear of surgery on their eyes, but in fact, they can rest assured that today, with advanced technology, cataract surgery is becoming safer and simpler. Nowadays, cataract surgery is performed by tearing a 5-5.5 mm diameter hole in the anterior capsule, sucking out the cloudy nucleus and cortex, and then placing an artificial lens. In the past, such an operation usually required a 6-7 mm incision, but nowadays, with advanced technology, it can usually be controlled to about 1.8 mm.
There is an old saying among many older cataract patients that they should wait until they are “old” before having surgery.
In fact, this is a misconception. There are generally four stages of cataract development in old age: the initial stage, the immature stage, the mature stage, and the overripe stage. This is the best time to perform surgical treatment. There are two harmful effects of waiting for cataract to get worse before surgery: first, it is more difficult to operate, and the hardness of the patient’s crystal nucleus will increase after the cataract gets serious, which is difficult to take out; second, serious cataract will cause some other eye diseases. In general, if the vision of the naked eye drops to 0.5, you can consider surgery.