June is Cataract Awareness Month

PINE BELT, Miss. (WDAM) - Over 24 million Americans over the age of 40 deal with cataracts.

The month brings awareness not only of potential treatment to those who are dealing with cataracts now, but also to those who may develop them in the future.

Luckily, the solution to get rid of cataracts is simple, and much more advanced than the surgery available years ago.

“The cataract procedure has really advanced over the last 40 (to) 50 years,” said Dr. Kiper Nelson, a cataract surgeon at Southern Eye Center, LLC. in Hattiesburg. “The cataract procedure takes about 10 minutes to do. We remove the cloudy cataract from inside the eye, and we replace it with a clear lens implant that restores the focus of the eye.”

Nelson also said that lens implants have changed over the past 10 years.

“We have lens implants now that can correct the patient’s vision, oftentimes better than before they developed the cataract,” Nelson said. “This is an amazing technology that allows us to take the cataract out, put the lens implant in, and then we let the patient heal.”

Patients return for a follow-up appointment after three weeks where the actual fine-tuning takes place. The light-adjustable lens is an implant that can be adjusted after the cataract surgery.

For more information on the light adjustable lenses, click here.

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