Cataracts Sebastian

	Almost everyone develops cataracts as they grow older.

Over fifty percent of people over the age of 60 (and quite a few younger than that) suffer from cataracts. Almost everyone develops cataracts as they grow older. Cataract formations occur at different rates and can affect one or both eyes.

A cataract is a progressive clouding of the eye's natural lens, which interferes with the proper focusing of light passing through the eye to the retina. Aging and other factors cause proteins in the eye's lens to clump together forming these cloudy areas. Early changes may not disturb vision, but over time cataracts typically result in blurred or fuzzy vision, and glare, haloes and/or starburst either in sunlight or expecially around lights at night People with progressed cataracts often say they feel as if they're looking through a waterfall or a piece of wax paper.

Symptoms of cataracts:

• Decreasing vision clarity with age
• Blurred or double vision, or ghost images
• Glare, haloes, or starbursts around bright lights, especialy at night
• Difficulty reading highway signs at night
• Difficulty seeing and feeling uncertain when driving at night
• Vision that worsens in bright light or sunlight
• Difficulty distinguishing colors, a frequent symptom but one often missed due to the gradual onset of cataracts
• Poor depth perception
• Frequent prescription changes for glasses
• Difficulty with reading or fine work 
• Feeling like your glasses are dirty even after just washing them
• Difficulty following the golf ball
• Suddenly being able to read again without reading glasses or bifocals

Blurred vision
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Causes of cataracts:

• Age coupled with a lifetime of exposure to ultraviolet light from the sun are BY FAR THE NUMBER ONE CAUSE of the ordinary average cataract
• Other factors that may also play a supporting role include: 
• Eye trauma
• Heredity
• Diabetes
• Some medications including long-term use of oral steroids (cortisone)
• Ultraviolet radiation
• Smoking
• Glaucoma
• Certain metabolic medical conditions

Diagnosing cataracts:

Your eye doctor can perform a detailed eye exam to determine how much your vision has been affected by a cataract. Concerning when to remove a cataract, we HAVEN'T WAITED  for CATARACTS TO BECOME RIPE for over 25 years.  Instead, they are typically removed when they are found by your ophthalmologist to be responsible for any visual symptoms you have that you are unwilling to live with, such as glare or difficulty driving at night, inability to follow the golf ball, or difficulty with reading or fine work.

Treating Sebastian cataracts:

Currently there is no medical treatment to reverse or prevent the development of cataracts. Once they form, the only one way to achieve clear vision again is through cataract surgery. 

In your parents' or grandparents' day, cataract surgery was considered risky, required a lengthy hospital stay and was usually postponed for as long as possible, often until the cataract was "RIPE" (Surgeons haven't waited until cataracts were "RIPE" before being removed for 25+ years).  However, it is extremely fortunate in our day and age, that the technology of cataract surgery has become so far advanced that it is by far the most common surgery done in the United States, has an exceptional record of safety and success, and is performed by excellent surgeons, such as our own  DR MONNETT and DR STEINWAND in AS LITTLE AS 4 MINUTES.  

Coupling this with our well-known "NO-NEEDLE NO-STITCH NO-PATCH INSTANT SIGHT CATARACT SURGERY" technique, brought to the Space and Treasure Coasts FIRST by DR MONNETT in the 1990's, area patients typically enjoy a quick, virtually painless procedure, using ONLY EYEDROPS rather than uncomfortable and potentially complication-causing needle injections to numb the eye.  Patients are able to leave the surgery center in a matter of only minutes after surgery, WITHOUT ANY STITCHES OR EYEPATCH and already experiencing vision with their just-operated eye, and are able to return to full activity within a day or two of surgery (not to mention those patients who go out to lunch or dinner later the same day).

An UNEXPECTED BONUS of cataract surgery when performed by excellent surgeons such as Dr Monnett and Dr Steinwand, is that patients typically no longer need any distance glasses and see clearly to drive without glasses!!  For this reason, vision is often better than it ever was even before cataracts developed.  If this sounds incredible, see what cataract patients have to say about their cataract surgery.

AND THERE'S MORE--Crystalens  and Acrysof ReSTOR LENSES ARE HERE!  READ AGAIN WITHOUT GLASSES!

In keeping with our 20 year reputation of being at the forefront of bringing the very latest proven techniques and technologies to the Space and Treasure Coasts, the MONNETT EYE CENTERS are once again proud to be at the very cutting edge of ophthalmology in providing the VERY LATEST GROUND-BREAKING (and FDA approved) technology of the Crystalens ACCOMMODATIVE INTRAOCULAR LENS (IOL) IMPLANT and the Acrysof ReSTOR IOL Utilizing this incredible technology, a small, select group of excellent surgeons NATIONWIDE, including DR MONNETT and DR STEINWAND, are able to RESTORE READING VISION WITHOUT GLASSES!i  Just imagine, clear distance AND reading vision again without glasses through lens/cataract removal surgery and insertion of the Crystalens ACCOMMODATIVE IOL or the Acrysof ReSTOR IOL.