Surgery is the only path forward, and it has been for years.
Across India, millions live in preventable darkness — not because medicine lacks the means to restore their sight, but because folklore has outlasted fact. During Cataract Awareness Month, a specialist in Vijayawada offered a quiet corrective to deeply held myths: cataracts, the country's leading cause of reversible blindness, yield to surgery alone, and they need not be endured until they 'ripen.' The gap between blindness and restored vision is often no wider than a thirty-minute procedure and the willingness to seek it.
- Millions of Indians remain unnecessarily blind because they are waiting for eye drops, vitamins, or herbal remedies to do what only surgery can.
- The stubborn myth that cataracts must 'mature' before treatment is safe has kept countless patients in avoidable darkness for years longer than necessary.
- Modern phacoemulsification surgery — quick, safe, and effective at any stage — has made the old 'wait and ripen' wisdom medically obsolete.
- Cataracts do not spare the young: congenital conditions, eye injuries, and diabetes mean working-age adults and even children are at risk, widening the public health burden.
- Specialists are using Cataract Awareness Month to push a single, urgent message: blur your vision, not your judgment — get examined, and trust the science.
On a Sunday morning in Vijayawada, cataract specialist Dr. Shaeeza Samreen arrived before reporters with a task familiar to many physicians: separating what is true from what people wish were true. Speaking from the LV Prasad Eye Institute's Kode Venkatadri Chowdary campus during Cataract Awareness Month, she addressed a public health paradox — cataracts are India's leading cause of reversible blindness, meaning the sight they steal can be given back, yet millions remain sightless because they are pursuing cures that do not exist.
No eye drop dissolves a cataract. No vitamin reverses it. No herbal preparation clears a clouded lens. Surgery is the only effective treatment, and one myth in particular has delayed it for far too many: the belief that a cataract must be allowed to 'ripen' before a surgeon should intervene. Samreen was direct — modern phacoemulsification, which uses ultrasound to break up and remove the clouded lens, is safe at any stage of the disease. The procedure takes under thirty minutes, and most patients recover quickly with restored functional vision.
Samreen also challenged the assumption that cataracts belong only to the elderly. Children can be born with them. Younger adults can develop them after eye injuries. Diabetes — increasingly common across India's population — can accelerate their formation in people still in their working years. The disease, she noted, does not check a person's age.
The human cost of delayed treatment is real and measurable: lost productivity, lost independence, and years spent navigating the world in unnecessary blur. Her closing message was simple — if vision begins to cloud, do not wait and do not self-treat. Seek a qualified eye examination. The technology and expertise to restore sight already exist; what is needed is the decision to use them.
In Vijayawada on a Sunday morning, Dr. Shaeeza Samreen stood before reporters with a straightforward message: the cloudiness stealing sight from millions of Indians across the country is treatable, but only if people stop waiting for a cure that will never come in a bottle.
Samreen, a cataract specialist at the LV Prasad Eye Institute's Kode Venkatadri Chowdary campus, had come to mark Cataract Awareness Month by doing what specialists often must do—untangle fact from folklore. Cataracts remain India's leading cause of reversible blindness, a distinction that carries particular weight: these are cases where vision can be restored, yet millions remain sightless because they believe in remedies that do not work. Eye drops will not dissolve a cataract. Vitamins will not reverse it. Herbal treatments will not clear the lens. Surgery is the only path forward, and it has been for years.
One of the most persistent myths Samreen addressed is the idea that cataracts must be allowed to mature, to "ripen" like fruit, before a surgeon should touch them. This belief has kept countless people in unnecessary darkness. Modern phacoemulsification—a technique that uses ultrasound to break up the clouded lens and remove it—has made that old wisdom obsolete. The procedure is safe at any stage of the disease. It takes less than thirty minutes. Most patients recover quickly and regain functional vision.
Another misconception Samreen worked to correct is the assumption that cataracts are an affliction of age alone. They are not. Children can be born with cataracts due to congenital conditions. Younger adults can develop them following eye injuries. Diabetes, the metabolic disorder spreading through India's population, can accelerate cataract formation in people still in their working years. The disease does not check a person's age before it clouds their lens.
The human cost of these misunderstandings is substantial. Millions of Indians have lost productive years, independence, and quality of life because they delayed seeking treatment or pursued ineffective alternatives. A person who could have had their vision restored in a thirty-minute procedure instead navigates the world in blur, unable to work, unable to read, unable to move through daily life with confidence.
Samreen's message to the public was direct: if your vision has begun to blur, do not wait. Do not hope that drops or supplements will help. Seek an eye examination from a qualified professional. Modern surgery can restore what cataracts have taken, but only if you act before the condition advances further and only if you trust the science rather than the myths. The technology exists. The expertise exists. What remains is the decision to use them.
Citações Notáveis
No eye drops, vitamins or herbal remedies can cure cataracts and surgery remains the only effective treatment— Dr. Shaeeza Samreen, cataract specialist at LV Prasad Eye Institute
Modern phacoemulsification enables safe treatment at any stage, rejecting the notion that cataracts should be allowed to ripen before surgery— Dr. Shaeeza Samreen
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Why does the myth about cataracts needing to "ripen" persist so strongly in India?
It's old advice that made sense in a different era, when cataract surgery was riskier and took longer. People passed it down as wisdom, and it stuck. Now the surgery is safer and faster, but the belief hasn't caught up with the medicine.
If surgery is so effective and quick, why are millions still blind from cataracts?
Because they don't know surgery works, or they don't trust it, or they can't access it. Myths are powerful. A person might try drops for years before accepting that surgery is their only real option.
You mentioned cataracts affect younger people too. How does that change the picture?
It shatters the idea that this is just something old people deal with. A diabetic in their thirties or someone who had an eye injury can suddenly find themselves facing blindness. It's not a disease of age—it's a disease of circumstance.
What's the barrier to people getting examined?
Sometimes it's access—not everyone lives near a good eye clinic. But often it's simply not knowing they should. Blurred vision becomes normal to them. They adjust. They don't realize it's reversible.
So awareness campaigns like this one—do they actually change behavior?
They have to. If even a fraction of people who hear this message get an eye exam instead of buying drops, lives improve. Vision restored is a tangible thing. It's worth the effort to reach people.