Cat Cataracts

What is a cataract?

Just as it is in a human eye, the cataract is a sort of opacity, an area which is not clear in the eye. Your normal eye, and that of your cat, is transparent, or translucent in nature. It transmits the light and helps the light to focus on the back of the eye. Any time that something appears on the eye that is not transparent, it may block the ability of light to travel to the back of the eye and impair the vision. In some cases, if the blockage is strong enough the light may be entirely blocked and the vision is lost in that eye.

What Causes Cataracts?

In many cases, veterinarians and even human doctors don’t know what may have caused the cataract. They can be an inherited condition or might be related to a disease that you don’t even know your cat has, such Cat Diabetes and Cat Pink Eye. Most cataracts that take place in our feline friends are related to an infection they may have had in the eye when they were younger or from a trauma that took place to the eye.

In some cases, they are also related to other kinds of diseases that cats have, and even very rarely, as in the human population, the cataract might be an inherited condition that your cat got from his or her parents.
There are many causes of cataracts and depending on the cause your vet may be able to help your cat or dog to see better. A cataract is not the same as the scleroris that takes place in the eye of your pet as they age. A cataract, if mature, can cause blindness for your pet.

Most pets do not gain cataracts as they age and if they have something that appears to be a cataract it does not generally cause blindness. It is usually instead the sclerosis, which will cause the appearance of a change to the eye but in most cases, it does not impair the site of your cat.

A cataract in cats’ eyes will be found less commonly than they are in a dog’s eye. Whenever there is a cataract found in the eye of a cat the cat should be examined a bit more thoroughly to seek out another cause for it.

Treatment Options

Just as in the case of a human eye, a cataract can be removed from a cat’s eye or a dog’s to help them be better able to see. The surgery is not lengthy and in many cases is not overly costly. It will help your pet to be better able to see the world around them. Cataracts are not common in animals and are usually the result of an infection or a trauma to the eye but in many cases they can be removed and sight restored to your pet.