Cataracts

Cataracts often cause sight loss as people age, but effective treatments can restore clear vision. Leading board-certified ophthalmologist and surgeon Mark Heimmel, MD, offers conservative treatments and advanced, laser eye surgery for cataracts at Eye Care Specialists. To learn more about cataract treatments and arrange your comprehensive eye exam, call the East Windsor, New Jersey, office or schedule an appointment online today. 

What are cataracts?

Cataracts affect the lens in your eye, making your vision cloudy. A lens bends the light as it enters your eye, sending it to the retina at the back of your eyeball. Light placement accuracy determines how clearly you see.

Around the age of 40, proteins in your eye start breaking down. The broken protein fragments then clump together, clouding the lens and forming a cataract. As time passes, clouding worsens, so you have increasingly poor vision.

Cataracts don’t always cause symptoms when they start developing. However, as the retinal clouding worsens, you might have more trouble seeing at night, find colors fade, and have to change your corrective lens prescription more often. Without treatment, cataracts can eventually lead to partial or total sight loss.

Why would I get cataracts?

Cataracts are a common aspect of aging, so the older you become, the more it increases your chances of developing the condition. Certain risk factors also make you more prone to cataracts, such as:

• Family members with cataracts
• Previous eye injuries or surgeries
• Excessive alcohol consumption
• Long-term corticosteroid use
• Health problems like diabetes
• Smoking
• Prolonged unprotected sun exposure

To assess you for cataracts, Dr. Heimmel performs a careful eye exam. He checks your sight and evaluates your eyes’ structure and function. He will likely use a dilated eye exam to confirm you have cataracts.

How are cataracts treated?

Treatments that can help with cataracts include:

• Prescription medication
• Prescription eye drops
• Dietary changes
• Laser eye surgery

Laser cataract surgery is an outpatient procedure at Eye Care Specialists. Under sedation and a local anesthetic, Dr. Heimmel makes a small incision in your eye and extracts the lens. Then, he replaces it with an intraocular lens (IOL) implant.

Dr. Heimmel performs advanced cataract surgery using techniques that enable him to customize your cataract surgery and ensure optimal precision.

Following your cataract surgery, the IOL implants should restore your vision so you can see clearly again.

If you have cataract symptoms or are at risk of developing cataracts and want to identify them early, call Eye Care Specialists or schedule your appointment online today.