If your eye injury caused cataracts to form on your lenses, you may have a number of issues seeing things. A traumatic cataract is a type of cataract that develops from blunt trauma to the eye's lens. Like other forms of cataract, traumatic cataracts can eventually cause problems with your range of vision. Learn how the cataracts on your lenses disrupt your vision and how surgery can help below.

What's Traumatic Cataract?

Many people consider cataracts as a sign of aging. However, adults who receive some type of blunt trauma or penetrative injury to the eyes can also develop cataracts over time. A cataract is a cloud-like film that forms inside the eye's lens. The filmy cloud can stay small and very noticeable, or it can spread throughout the lens and disrupt your vision.

Traumatic cataracts can cause a number of symptoms to occur over time, including:

• blurred or dimmed vision
• double vision
• sensitivity to light

You may also see halos, or bright circles, in your line of vision. Colors, such as red and blue, may appear faded or washed-out. The symptoms can become exceptionally worse without surgical treatment.

How Can Surgery Treat Traumatic Cataracts?

Cataract surgery may be one of the only viable options you have right now to improve your vision. But before an eye doctor performs surgery on your lenses, they must examine both of your eyes. Traumatic cataracts can affect the corneas and other tissues in your eyes. If blunt trauma tore or damaged the cornea, a doctor may need to repair it as well.

If you only have cataracts in your lenses, an eye doctor may use one of several types of surgeries to remove the films. Many eye doctors use the phacoemulsification method to treat cataracts.

During the procedure above, a doctor will use a small ultrasonic probe to break up the filmy residue in each lens. An eye doctor will suction out the damaged lens or physically remove it with something else. After a doctor removes the lens, they'll insert an artificial lens in its place.

An ophthalmologist may use a laser during your eye surgery to break up, remove, and replace your damaged lenses. The laser allows a doctor to make precise cuts into the lens before they remove a cataract. The eye doctor you see may or may not use a laser during your procedure.

For more information about treating your traumatic cataracts, consult an eye physician today.