What are cataracts?

Cataracts are when the clear part of your eye gets cloudy, like a foggy window.

Imagine you're looking through a clean glass window, everything is bright and clear. Now imagine that same window starts to get all foggy and blurry, like when you leave your glasses on the bathroom sink and they get steamy. That’s what happens with cataracts, the clear lens inside your eye becomes cloudy, making things look fuzzy or dim.

When someone has cataracts, it's like looking at the world through a muddy puddle. Colors might seem less bright, and things might look faded or yellowish. Reading a book can feel harder, and driving at night might be tricky because lights look blurry or halved.

As people get older, the lens inside their eye can start to change, kind of like how an old pair of sunglasses might get scratched up over time. These changes make the lens cloudy instead of clear, which is why cataracts often happen as part of getting older.