Cataract Treatments

What Are Cataracts?

Your eye has a natural lens that helps focus light in your eye to see. It’s generally clear at birth but loses its clarity and ability to focus over time. These common, age-related changes result in vision symptoms.

What Are the Symptoms?

Cataracts may only affect a small part of your lens at first. But as they grow, the cataracts cloud more of your lens, which interferes with your vision and the light as it passes through your eye. Symptoms can include:

How Are Cataracts Treated?

Once cataracts are visually bothersome and affecting your daily activities, then it is reasonable to consider treatment. Cataracts can’t be treated with medications or glasses.

Fortunately, there’s a safe and effective surgical treatment to help you improve vision lost from cataracts. Ennen Eye Center’s surgeons have the technology and expertise to help good candidates get rid of their glasses with advanced cataract surgery.

Ennen Eye Center provides safe, effective treatment options to help you improve vision lost from cataracts.

What Happens During Cataract Removal Surgery?

At Ennen Eye Center, our doctors do no-stitch traditional cataract surgery and laser refractive cataract surgery. Here’s a brief look at what happens for both procedures.

Traditional Cataract Surgery

Regardless of the cataract surgery that you’re a candidate for and choose in consultation with your surgeon, rest assured that your surgeon will provide a detailed preoperative exam to ensure adequate diagnosis and treatment of other ocular conditions.

In this procedure, your surgeon will perform microinvasive, sutureless cataract surgery whereby the cataract lens is removed and a synthetic intraocular lens is placed in the eye. This will provide improved vision while wearing glasses or contact lenses.

Laser Refractive Cataract Surgery

Ennen Eye Center’s surgeons are the area leaders in laser refractive cataract surgery. These procedures use additional preoperative and intraoperative diagnostic tools and laser precision to help you meet your glasses independence goals.

Although these procedures have an additional out-of-pocket expense, most find the independence from glasses and quality of vision is well worth the investment and over time may actually be more affordable, since it doesn’t require prescription glasses. We even offer convenient financing options through CareCredit.

Advanced Distance Correction

Our surgeons specialize in advanced cataract surgery that accounts for the eye’s natural astigmatism. This provides cataract patients with the opportunity to have little or no need for glasses in the distance. These patients will still need glasses or contact lenses for near and intermediate tasks.

Presbyopia Correction

At Ennen Eye Center, we also perform laser refractive cataract surgery to treat presbyopia. Presbyopia is the age-related loss of near focus. It often requires reading glasses or bifocals in the mid-to-late 40s. There are a number of presbyopia-correcting intraocular lenses that give you the widest range of vision without glasses or contact lenses.

Our surgeons are the local experts in this presbyopia-correcting technology. This means that with us, good candidates have the opportunity to restore their vision similar to their young adulthood or may even be glasses-free for the first time in their lives.

YAG Laser Capsulotomy

After cataract surgery, a percentage of prior cataract surgery patients will develop scar tissue and clouding behind the intraocular lens placed at the time of cataract surgery. This is called a posterior capsular opacification or a secondary cataract.

This often causes vision to once again have visual symptoms of blur and night vision symptoms. It can usually be resolved in a quick, one-time laser procedure called YAG laser capsulotomy.

What Does Cataract Surgery Recovery Involve?

Most of our patients are pleasantly surprised by the ease of the surgical experience and recovery. After surgery, most patients will experience mild discomfort or sandy or itchy feeling eyes. As the mild swelling and inflammation resolves the symptoms will quickly resolve, often in a matter of several days.

Depending on the type of surgery you and your surgeon chose for you, your vision will also rapidly improve to allow for enhanced vision either with or without glasses or contact lenses.

You will be asked to avoid vigorous physical activity and protect your eye for the first week and should expect to use prescription eye drops after surgery for a few weeks. Our team at Ennen Eye Center will ensure you have the information you need to achieve your laser clear vision.

Request Cataract Exam

Why Choose Us?

At Ennen Eye Care, we provide the most thorough care in the Fort Smith area to ensure your safety and clearest sight. Along with our decades of experience, we also rely on the latest technology to make your visit with us the best that eye care has to offer!

Call (479) 452-7800