they weren't bad enough for insurance to cover, but my optometrist sent me Barnett, perkins, delaney eye center where they do a BAM test. they shine a bright light into your eyes and if you can't see it means you can't drive at night -- thus insurance paid for it. cost me a few bucks out of pocket.

don't know anything about balance issues.

I have cataracts and Glaucoma, and I have balance issues (having fallen 3 times this past year)
I didn't know they could be related.
I see my ophthalmologist later this month and ask her about it.

pay for it.

'Eye diseases. Cataracts and glaucoma are stealthy thieves of sight and balance. Balance nearly always improves after successful cataract surgery.'

http://www.health.harvard.edu/press_releases/loss-of-balance

Please let me know what your ophthalmologist says. I'm seeing my GP in a month, and will ask him too.

it's interesting that they mention cataracts but don't explain it. I'm guessing here that the brain is getting conflicting messages from the poor eyesight and other senses.

(What's with this "Golden Years" crap, anyway?)

Balance and cataract occurred to me before I saw this, practicing and testing myself, so I thought I'd do some research (AND wanting to avoid 'brain surgery.')

Here's more: Balance in walking and standing is dependent on many factors. Good balance requires reliable sensory input from the individual’s vision, vestibular system (the balance system of the inner ear), and proprioceptors (sensors of position and movement in the feet and legs). The elderly are prone to a variety of diseases that affect these systems, including cataracts, glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy, and macular degeneration, which all affect vision; diabetic peripheral neuropathy, which affects position sense in the feet and legs; and degeneration of the vestibular system. - See more at: http://vestibular.org/node/10#sthash.5My1NdD1.dpuf

http://vestibular.org/node/10

that seems to have a lot to do with it. The gradual decline I understand, but the sudden flareup is mystifying. Just hope it doesn't happen again.

is my mother's fridge magnet, a little embroidered circle hanging from a cheerful plastic daisy, "SCREW THE GOLDEN YEARS."

incredibly expensive ways of keeping you in a wheelchair staring at the TV in a nursing home for a few more years.

I was a little shocked at myself for not feeling as sad as I probably should have been when my mother died after years of that.

and a host of other problems. She did die at home and she knew an overdose was within arm's reach if she needed it, thanks to my dad.

My dad was luckier, he was sharp until two days before he went, said he'd had enough and wanted to go. Then he went.

and this is recent. All current guesses are neurological problems.

Seeing my GP in a month, and will ask.

a few months ago I was scared because I was falling down a lot. But, after a week or so it was all gone and I went back to "normally" feeling a little off-balance here and there. I no longer stand on chairs or stools or climb ladders alone or without something to grab onto to steady myself.

Doctors didn't blow it off, but after a few tests didn't show anything wrong it went into the "normal effects of aging" bin and that was that.

and hope they did all necessary tests.

Bits of grit can be built up in the cochlear canal and interfere with balancing. The Epley maneuver can treat it very effectively but it must be done by a physician the first time.

Another inner ear problem that can affect balance is acoustic neuroma, treatable by surgery.

Cerebellar CVAs can also cause balance problems.

Garden variety dizziness is different and can be caused by dehydration, low blood sugar and low blood pressure.

The doc will also come up with 1001 different things it could be. It's just not linked to cataracts or the surgery to remove them and implant a clear lens.

I think I recall Doc Martin treating a patient with the Epley maneuver!

battle over the testing and treatment of Lymes and its co-infections has left a lot of
others like me.

Exercise is what fixed it for me. It was painful and hard and I still have to go to the gym and do the weights and balance poses or I relapse back very quickly. It's not easy but it's the only thing that works for me.

had nothing to do with my balance issues. However, looking up thread do get your ears checked by a specialist. It may be the problem.

but I have been diagnosed with hydrocephalus, which probably contributes to balance problem.

Absolutely no balance problems.

And in the lead-up to the surgery, after my regular eye doctor told me it was time to do it (I'd known for at least fifteen years that I had cataracts in the works), every single person who either looked in my eyes or looked at the paperwork connected to them, would basically say, "Whoa! You really have cataracts!" I finally asked someone how bad they were. I was told that cataracts are measured from 1 to 4, with 1 being just barely there and 4 being you can't see at all. One eye was a 3 and the other a 3+. It's amazing I wasn't walking into walls.

The other interesting thing was that I was just 63, and I was by at least a decade, and often by two decades, the youngest person in the room at my various appointments connected to the surgery. I'm thinking that a lot of the older people had put off getting the surgery because when their own parents were getting it, the surgery wasn't as good in many ways.

I tell people that the best thing that ever happened to my eyes were the cataracts. I can recall not being able to read the blackboard when I was in first grade. Even though I'm grateful I got born in a century where I could get glasses and later on contact lenses, my vision is just so much better than it ever was with the glasses or contacts. When I open my eyes first thing in the morning I can see! It's wonderful.

and happy you can see!

I tell anyone who will listen to me that the very first time your doctor says it's time for the surgery, do it. Don't postpone it.

They've gotten very, very good at the surgery and few people have complications.

I was a poor risk for my last one but at a 4, I knew I wasn't going to get any blinder. It turned out just fine.

to know about modern cataract surgery is that it's forever. My oldest brother, now 71, had his first cataract surgery at age 50, and I'm pretty sure he's had it again, because even then they apparently didn't get rid of the cataract completely.

My doctor assures me that this is it. My vision will never change, barring some other thing going wrong with my eyes.

Here's another bit of luck (or something like that) for me: the local surgeon my eye doctor sent me to is very good, but my results have been even better than expected. My vision is now very close to 20-20, and with a clarity that still astounds me, especially if I'm looking at something very distant. Sort of like I got HD vision all of a sudden, after years of crappy TV reception.

which came in handy when I couldn't find my glasses, I'd just switch eyes.

Losing the nearsighted eye was the worst because I couldn't read. I could drive. I could read road signs. Just give me anything closer than 15 feet away and I was blind. That eye needed a corneal transplant so they did the two things together.

Losing the farsighted eye started to make driving scary. The cornea was borderline so there was no guarantee it would work without a transplant. I'm lucky it did, the relief on the surgeon's face the next day was amazing. She made me equally blind without my glasses in both eyes, so it's the first time I've ever matched.

I can now read better without glasses than I can with them, though. And since I do so much close work (spinning & weaving), it's a good deal for me.

That's one of the ways they can correct vision these days with contacts. I'm thinking it's called mono something. I tried it once, a good twenty years ago and lasted about twenty-four hours. The problem was the distance vision was excellent, as was the near (reading) distance. But everything in between, especially what I refer to as the social distance was terrible. Couldn't see in that middle distance. Went to the library and either had to get up within two feet of the books just to read the titles, or stand so far back that I couldn't read them. So I returned to the eye doctor and went back to being corrected for the middle and distance vision and use reading glasses for close up.

But I know people who do that and love it.

All of the years before the cataract surgery I was nearsighted, very nearsighted. And of course after age 40 I also needed reading glasses on top of the contacts. But I embroider, and my preferred time to do that was in the morning before I put my contacts in, because that very close vision was completely clear and I could see the detail I needed to do such close work. It was the reason I decided not to get laser surgery to correct my vision, because I'd be giving up that ability to see things close to me. And now, after the cataract surgery, I have to use reading glasses for reading or close work. One way I've solved that problem is to use slightly stronger reading glasses when I embroider. Meanwhile, as already indicated, by distance vision is beyond amazing.

I actually had the option to have lenses put in that would have made my near vision good, but I'd have needed glasses for driving and other distance viewing. Since I'd grown quite used to reading glasses, I was happy to do it this way.

I can get them in and I can tolerate them. They just weld themselves to my eyeball and I need a doc to go in with a scalpel and pry them up. Not fun.

This happened a few months after my older daughter was born, more than 30 years ago. I don't know why, but it never cleared up despite several rounds of antibiotics. I was so dizzy I couldn't drive, and had trouble crossing city streets because looking both ways made my head spin. It cost me my journalism career. A couple of doctors told me it was all in my head. A major specialist at Massachusetts General did tests and told me I had Benign Positional Vertigo.

Treatment by a really good acupuncturist in NJ made it possible for me to drive slowly on back streets. A few years after we moved to Maryland, my ob/gyn read something about Prozac having a side effect of helping with dizziness. She referred me to a psychiatrist, who agreed to try Prozac, and by golly it worked. I'm able to drive on the Beltway, even though I no longer take Prozac. There are still dizzy spells at times, usually if my sinuses are bad, or if it's a cold windy day with high barometric pressure.

If your balance issues are not resolved with cataract surgery, Johns Hopkins has been using something called the Epley Maneuver which helps people with vertigo. If mine ever gets bad again, I intend to go there and have it done.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epley_maneuver

Good luck, Ellen, in resolving your balance issues.
I found ginger tea somewhat helpful for dizzy spells, but don't know whether yours are related to inner ear problems. .

Last edited Sat Jun 7, 2014, 09:00 PM - Edit history (2)

Just returned to cottage from daughter's baby shower in Hughesville, after being in SilSpg for a few days. FORTUNATELY I don't have trouble driving, but leaving cottage in the rain a few days ago, after sunset, caused me to think about cataracts, as halos appeared.

I don't have dizziness except maybe bppv! which I read about when I wrote this OP. Only appears when I'm in unusual positions, like in bed trying to look at moon in window over my head, AND looking UP at stuff high up. May ask doc about that, along with the Epley, which a DUer mentioned and I think I recall seeing on DocMartin. Would be glad to go to Hopkins to resolve this stuff, so will ask my GP which comes first, cataract surgery, Epley, or something else.

edit: But I just remembered! A few? years, after 1 I think daughter was born, family visiting, dance-playing in living room, and I couldn't 'twirl!' Not that I was ever a great twirler, never could 'spot' when, as a little kid, I took ballet lessons.

Cataract surgery is success treatment to get rid from cataract eye disease permanent.

Thanks.