WHAT IS A CATARACT?

Your natural lens in your eye is made up of water soluble proteins called Crystallins, carefully aligned similarly to an onion.

When you are young these cystallins and clear, enabling your lens to focus the light clearly on the back of your eye. The lens is able to change shape to change focus so that you can see things close up and far away.

As you get older these proteins change; your lens gets larger and becomes less flexible, no longer changing focus, this is called presbyopia. This is when you start to need reading glasses.

Over time the crystallins go cloudy; this is the formation of a cataract. The eye is no longer able to focus the light, instead it is scattered so vision becomes blurred, halos and glare form around lights.

This process happens to everyone in the same way we all get grey hair; just some people get less than others and some sooner than others. When your lens is cloudy enough to affect your vision you need cataract surgery to correct this.

FROM CLEAR TO CLOUDY

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THE EYE

CLEAR LENS

The clear lens focus the image onto the macula at the back of the end enabling clear vision

LENS WITH CATARACT

A cloudy lens with cataract is unable to focus so the light is scattered and the image see is blurred

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​BOOK AN APPOINTMENT

T: 02380914471
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Contact Stephanie

cataract surgery

The only solution to cataracts affecting your vision is to have them surgically removed. Fortunately for most patients this is a straight forward procedure taking approximately 30 minutes. It involves removing the cloudy cataract lens through a small incision, breaking it up with an ultrasound probe, leaving the lens capsule behind. A new intraocular lens is then inserted into the capsular bag. 

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WHY CHOOSE STEPHANIE

Stephanie has performed thousands of cataract operations including high volume cataract lists.

She was also invited to debate the motion ‘Cataract surgery should be a sub-specialism of ophthalmology’ at the 2021 Royal College of Ophthalmologists Congress.

Where her particular expertise is invaluable is if you have ever had a history of amblyopia, squint surgery, double vision, prisms in your glasses or needed to wear an eye patch or glasses as a child. Her assessment can prevent you from having unexpected outcomes after surgery as well as enable you to make the right choices and treatment plan.

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