Do you know what to expect from a cataract operation? The visual outcome (whether or not you'll need glasses for seeing distance afterwards) can depend on many factors like if you have a high prescription for your glasses before, the curves on your eye, previous laser surgery to name a few.
The common misconception is that a cataract is a growth over the front of your eye, it's not. It's actually the clouding of the lens inside your eye.
The natural lens (with it's cataract) can be removed in surgery and a new clean implant lens can be put in, completely changing the vision, making it clear and clean and bright again.
One problem that we find is that many of our clients are being told that they won't need glasses for the distance after they have had their surgery. Unfortunately this isn't always true.
The eye hospital will try their best to correct your vision when they do the operation. They will measure your eye, scan it and do all sorts to help them work out what power lens they need to implant to get your vision at it's best. This means they will try to make it so you don't need to have any glasses afterwards to see the distance. And try is the operative word here.
There are many reasons why you may still need them. If your prescription was very high before, if you have high astigmatism, if you've had laser surgery to correct your vision in the past are just some of the reasons why it may not.
So the take away is that you may still need glasses for distance afterwards but your prescription will be reduced so your glasses won't be as strong as they were. For some people even this is a huge improvement - it means they can get out of bed in the morning and be able to walk to the bathroom without having to put on their glasses first, but they still need them for driving and watching TV.
Some patients don't feel right without glasses on, even if their eyesight is excellent. They may have worn them for the last 60 years!
I really hope this helps to understand a bit more about the outcomes of surgery.
And for eyecare practitioners there is plenty to think about how we explain and what we say to patients. It's definitely worth asking yourself - How do you explain the possible refractive outcomes to patients?
