Posted by: Eye Centers of Florida in Eye Health

Vision Problems? You Might Have a Cataract

Protect Your Eyes During a Pandemic

If you’re experiencing problems with your vision that make completing everyday tasks difficult, then you may be suffering from a cataract. At Eye Centers of Florida, we believe that the quality of your vision can greatly impact the quality of your life — you deserve to live life with clear, cataract-free vision!

To recognize Cataract Awareness Month, we’ve put together this guide so that you can recognize the symptoms of a cataract and will know when it’s time to reach out for help.

Six Signs of Cataract

Six Signs that You May Have a Cataract

Many eye diseases develop slowly and subtly, including cataracts. Cataracts develop gradually, but they will worsen with time, displaying more severe symptoms the longer they go untreated.

If you suffer from any of the following six symptoms, it may be a sign that you need to schedule a cataract surgery evaluation with the experts at Eye Centers of Florida:

Everything Looks Blurry

When light enters your eye, it is focused by the eye’s natural lens onto the retina, which is essential for vision. When the lens becomes cloudy due to a cataract, less light can pass through it. This means that less light can be focused on the retina, causing blurry vision. If cataracts go untreated, they can become even cloudier, resulting in foggy and filmy eyesight.

Trouble Behind the Wheel

When a cataract forms and causes the natural lens to become cloudy and opaque, light that enters the eye is diffracted. This results in glares and halos forming around lights, which can make it difficult to see clearly. Frequently seeing glares and halos around headlights and streetlights often makes driving at night difficult, painful, and even dangerous.
Cloudy and Opaque Lens

Colors Seem Faded or Yellowed

Cataracts form when the precise arrangement of tissues in the eye’s lens begin to break down and clump. As cataracts become worse over time, these clumps can turn a yellowish color, giving your vision a yellow tint. This will change how you perceive colors, and can even make it difficult to distinguish between colors that you never had trouble identifying in the past!
Prescription Glasses for Blurry Vision

Rapid Changes in Your Prescription

Those with cataracts commonly experience blurry vision, but many believe that blurry vision is just a sign that they need a stronger prescription for their glasses. While using stronger prescription glasses may temporarily improve your sight, your cataracts will continue to progress, and you’ll again require a stronger prescription! Cataract surgery is the only treatment for cataracts, so if you find yourself frequently buying new glasses with stronger prescriptions, it’s time to see an eye doctor.

Temporarily Improved Vision

It may sound counterintuitive, but some people who develop cataracts can experience temporarily improved vision. For example, if you used to have to use glasses to read and now can read without glasses, you may have a cataract! We call this phenomenon second sight, and while not having to use glasses may seem like a positive thing at first, the improvement isn’t permanent. As the cataract continues to progress, your second sight will go away, and your vision will worsen.

Seeing Double

The diffraction of light caused by cataracts can result in double vision, also called diplopia. Cataracts can cause people to experience an effect called “ghosting,” where two images of a single object appear close together. If you cover one eye and still see double images, it’s likely that you have a cataract.
Diplopia

It’s Time to Remove Your Cataract & Restore Your Vision

Everyone deserves to experience life with clear vision, and if your cataracts are interfering with your quality of life, it’s time to reach out for help.

Cataract surgery is one of the most commonly performed surgical procedures. It’s safe, quick, and simple, especially in the hands of our cataract surgery specialists, David C. Brown, M.D., F.A.C.S., and Juan P. Fernandez de Castro, M.D., who always use the latest technology.

If you or a loved one is experiencing the symptoms of a cataract, call us at 888-393-2455 or schedule an evaluation so that you can see life as it was meant to be seen: clearly.