Your Choices of Intraocular Lenses for Your Cataract Surgery

Cataracts can cause a number of undesirable side effects, including clouded vision, difficulty with vision at night, sensitivity to light and glare, "haloing" around lights, and fading of colors. While many of these symptoms may be caused by other issues, cataracts are often the culprit. While the majority of cataracts develop slowly and don't disturb the eyesight in early stages, they will eventually interfere with your vision during later stages of life.

The only effective treatment to deal with cataracts is surgery. If your vision is being severely debilitated as a result of cataracts, you may consider surgery. The good news is that cataract surgery is fairly straightforward, and typically has great results for patients. Cataract surgery essentially involves getting rid of the clouded lens that affects your vision, and replacing it with a clear artificial lens, called an intraocular lens (IOL). This lens is placed in the same spot as your natural lens, and it becomes a permanent part of your eye.

The type of intraocular lens that you choose will depend on a number of factors, including your needs and desires, as well as what your doctor recommends. Here are the four choices you’ll have when it comes to selecting the right IOL for you.

What is an Intraocular Lens?

The first intraocular lenses where made from rigid plastic, but since their early days, they’ve been replaced by silicone and acrylic IOL’s that are much softer and flexible. These IOL’s are what permits your eye professional to insert them in the eye with a very tiny incision. The lens will then open up to the largest size once inside the eye. The majority of lenses are protected from ultraviolet (UV) rays, thereby protecting your retina against damages from the rays of the sun.

Single Vision Intraocular Lens

These types of lenses are used for focusing on a single distance. If you decide to go with a single vision intraocular lens, you’ll probably be fine to get behind the wheel of a car and watch television without having to wear glasses, but you’d most likely still require glasses for seeing things up close clearly.

If it’s the far distances that bother you the most without much concern for reading and seeing things close up, then a single vision intraocular lens is probably an ideal choice. About 90% of cataract patients go with this option. You could also select a single vision IOC that is set for near vision. With this version, you could read easily without the need of glasses, however, you’d still need them to see objects that are far away.

Toric Lens

This is a specialized type of single vision lens that is ideal for those with astigmatism. In fact, these lines have a correct for astigmatism built directly into them. Astigmatism refers to an eyeball that’s more oval-shaped than shpere-shaped, causing blurred vision.

For those with astigmatism who want a single vision lens, a topic lens could be the right fit. These lenses work really well for correcting vision compared to glasses.

Accommodating Intraocular Lens

These specialized lenses flex as the muscles inside of your eye focus on objects, which is referred to as "accommodating." Certain people can flex their lenses without problem, while others can’t flex them at all. This type of IOL is recommended by ophthalmologists if the patient desires distance vision, but is fine with glasses for reading. Today, there are accommodating lenses that can also correct astigmatism.

Multi Focus Lens

This type of IOL provides focus to multiple visual areas. Should you desire to have your eyes do all the focusing instead of your glasses, then multi focus lenses may be the right option for you. About 80% of patients that wear multi focus lenses never have to wear glasses again, and approximately 94% of them never require reading glasses.

Multi focus lenses provide strong distance and reading abilities. It is this type of lens that offers the best odds of never needing glasses ever again. However, they may cause haloing around lights in comparison to single focus lenses, as well as slightly reducing visual contrast.

About the Author: Lena Simmons suffered from cataracts, and although they didn’t affect her vision much during the first few years, they eventually began to hinder her quality of life. As such, Lena decided to have them removed, after discussing her concerns and options with the ophthalmologists at Ophthalmology Associates. For more information about how to effectively deal with your cataracts, visit youreyedoc.com today!

Online Article Marketing Specialist.