I thought I was going blind at a terrifying speed
The number of people presenting with cataracts is on the rise. Amy Packer hears from one 40-year-old about her upsetting experience
Imagine opening your eyes each morning and worrying you will see less than the day before. That was the reality for Laura Parker, 42, who developed a fast-growing cataract which meant she became almost completely blind in her left eye within a matter of months.
“My vision was deteriorating on a daily basis and it took a huge toll on my mental wellbeing,” says Laura.
“Vision is so precious and I could see that I was losing mine – and with it, my independence.”
Laura’s symptoms first began in early 2021 when she noticed that her left eye was feeling more tired than the right so visited her optician for a check-up. Before that, Laura, who is a director for a roofing company, had never worn glasses and had near perfect vision.
“Although I couldn’t see as clearly with my left eye, the optician didn’t detect any underlying problems and just prescribed glasses,” she says.
“However, I really struggled wearing them – I kept getting headaches and blurred vision.”
After a number of appointments, Laura, from Manchester, became more concerned. By November she was resorting to closing her left eye and just using the right.
“Although I still had limited vision in my left eye and my right eye was unaffected, I was no longer able to drive and was relying on my partner to take our children to school and I needed help with daily chores,” she says. “At the end of each day, my right eye would be so painful, literally aching because it was working so hard to compensate.”
Back at the optician, she pushed to be checked again. “My left eye was so bad, I honestly thought I was going blind,” she recalls.
“It was very scary. I had a scan and the doctor saw a very dense cataract (when the lens of your eye, a small transparent disc, develops cloudy patches) in my left eye. I was shocked. My eye had been checked so many times over the previous months but no one had seen a cataract.”
The long waiting lists for cataract surgery caused by Covid backlogs meant Laura chose to have her surgery privately. “I didn’t want to wait because of the rapid deterioration in my vision,” she explains. “It was like looking through fog. Every day I could see less and less.”
Although cataract surgery is the most common operation performed in the UK, it is rare to have such severe symptoms in your 40s. While age-related cataracts can form at 40 or 50, they generally progress slowly enough that they don’t start to really impair vision until people are into their 60s.
Mr Shafiq Rehman, consultant ophthalmic surgeon at Optegra Eye Hospital Manchester (optegra.com), who operated on Laura, says: “What was also unusual about Laura’s case is the speed at which the cataract was growing.
“We are seeing an increasing number of people presenting with these cataracts and the cause is still unclear. Sometimes it can be due to a head trauma, but this was not the case with Laura. It is very rare to see such a severe cataract in someone so young.
“When a cataract is not treated, it will continue to deteriorate and become so dense that it is called a ‘white’ cataract – it is so opaque that it effectively causes blindness, which is why Laura was having such trouble.”
Luckily, the operation, which took about 10 minutes under local anaesthetic, managed to completely fix Laura’s issue and after a recovery time of just over a week she was able to see clearly.
“This was a massive wake-up call for me – we take our vision for granted,” she says. “It feels amazing not to be dependent on people for favours – I’ve got my life back.”
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I was just prescribed glasses but I kept getting blurred vision & headaches