Smooth sailing, safe driving after cataract surgery

Cleopatra and her crew, floating down the Nile on her royal barge from Aswan to Khartoum, had to watch out for the six cataracts that could damage their craft and send them into the roiling waters. To this day, these sometimes-shallow, sometimes-rocky stretches of white water between Egypt and Sudan cause terrible accidents.

Cataracts that cloud the lens in your eye badly enough to interfere with you cruising down the highway can be the cause of bad accidents too, according to a study in JAMA Ophthalmology. Luckily, the researchers found that getting a cataract removed significantly reduces your risk of being a danger to yourself or others while you’re navigating your vehicle through traffic.

Researchers tracked 559,546 patients 65 years and older who underwent cataract surgery and found that traffic accident rates fell 9 percent post-surgery. (In that group there were 2.34 crashes per 1,000 patients annually before surgery and 2.14 crashes per 1,000 patients afterward.) Having that many fewer crashes prevents injury to drivers as well as passengers and folks in other vehicles and saves millions of dollars in health care costs and billions of stress-related moments.

Is your world looking a little less sharp? A simple eye exam can tell if you have a cataract; the lens-replacement procedure itself is usually swift (10 minutes) and effective. For a simple procedure when you have no other relevant health problems, the complication rate is below 2 percent getting lower all the time.

Once you have the procedure done, you’ll be ready to cruise the Nile— and your hometown highway—safely.

Mehmet Oz, M.D. is host of “The Dr. Oz Show,” and Mike Roizen, M.D. is Chief Wellness Officer and Chair of Wellness Institute at Cleveland Clinic. To live your healthiest, tune into “The Dr. Oz Show” or visit sharecare.com.