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Symptoms of Cataracts
Senile (age related) cataracts are the most common type of cataract. They affect men and women equally and usually start to develop around the age of 50 – 60. Symptoms gradually get worse as the cataract develops and may include the following:
- painless blurring of your vision,
- double vision in one eye,
- your eyes may be more sensitive to light and glare, making it hard to drive at night,
- spots in your vision,
- halos around bright lights such as street lights,
- difficulty seeing in brightly lit rooms or in sunshine,
- needing to change your spectacle or contact lens prescription more often, and
- poor sight that cannot be corrected by glasses.
Some cataracts are congenital (present at birth). They are quite rare but it is important to diagnose them as early as possible. Cataracts stop the lens of the eye being able to change shape, which means the way it sees objects is blurred. Newborn babies do not yet know how to recognise the objects they see, and a cataract stops vision developing as normal. If congenital cataracts are not removed early on they can eventually cause blindness.
