Eyesight is everything when it comes to being able to react accordingly and quickly a lot of the time, and your brain really relies on it to make those executive decisions that are made hundreds of times daily. Anything that impairs or endangers your vision is not only going to mean a potential lowering of life quality, but also a partial removal of one of the most important senses your grey matter has to rely on. Both glaucoma and cataracts will qualify as very serious threats to your eyesight, but what is the difference between glaucoma and cataracts? 

They are two very different degenerative eye conditions, and both can mean worsening vision for people if they’re left unchecked. That doesn’t happen often in the modern world, and cataracts in particular are very easily fixed with relatively simple surgery. The capacities of medical laser technology have grown in leaps and bounds over recent years, and because of it glaucoma is now also very treatable with surgery. That’s good news, especially considering that if glaucoma is left entirely unchecked it will usually result in blindness.  

We will now get right to explaining what’s the difference between glaucoma and cataracts. Glaucoma is when the optic nerve of the eye is debilitated due to excessive pressure (intraocular pressure) being placed on it. The optic nerve can only withstand so much of this pressure before it is damaged permanently. The nerve is not affected at all by cataracts, and instead what happens with them is cloud areas form on the lens of the eye and vision is impaired because of it.  

Pressure or Protein Breakdown 

Cataracts happen when proteins called crystallins in the eye lens break down as a person gets older. In rarer instances a person may have traumatic cataracts where physical damage to the lens promotes crystallins breaking up. The nature of the eye degeneration being related to nerve pressure or protein breakdown is the primary point in what is the difference between glaucoma and cataracts. Cataracts tend to start being a problem for people when they’re in their 60s and occur to either gender or any race equally.  

For glaucoma it is different, and the fact that people of African or Latin descent get glaucoma is something else you can also take note of with what is the difference between glaucoma and cataracts. If cataracts are a concern, it is also good to know that people with diabetes are more likely to develop cataracts as they get into that 60+ age bracket. Glaucoma is more likely to cause blindness though, but use of Combigan eye drops can be very helpful for reducing the ocular hypertension contributing to glaucoma.  

This covers all the basics for what is the difference between glaucoma and cataracts, and we’ll wrap up this entry by looking briefly at another common question; is it safe to have cataract surgery with glaucoma? The answer if yes, but additional safety precautions will have to be taken and you can expect your ophthalmologist to make you aware of this in advance of approving the surgery.