Living With Cataracts: Patient Story

Meet Matt.

Matt is a patient of Bay Eye Center, and several years ago, Matt noticed his vision begin to get blurry. As the days went by, things got worse. The 55-year-old Plymouth resident started seeing halos around lights.

“I was living in a fog”, he said. Turns out, Matt was living with cataracts.

The main symptom of cataracts is blurry vision. Cataracts can also be like looking through a frosty or fogged-up window, which explains the feeling he had. More than 200,000 people are diagnosed with cataracts each year in the U.S. - and Matt had become one of them. Everyday tasks became more difficult. The things he loved most, like watching sports, eating seafood at DiNatale’s, and visiting family in Florida for the holidays, became harder. Why? Because he couldn’t see the score, couldn’t read the menu, and couldn’t even read the name tags on Christmas gifts. He had to ask for help with the things he loved most and once took for granted - and that bothered him.

“I was upset about it,'' he said. That was Matt’s tipping point. He couldn’t stand living this way anymore.

Fast forward to March of this year. His previous eye doctor had moved out of the area, so Matt decided to visit Dr. Timothy Lynch at Bay Eye Center and he says that visit changed his life. Matt didn’t know he had cataracts. He was simply planning to have an eye exam and get a pair of glasses, but Dr. Lynch cleared things up and told Matt he had cataracts.

Dr. Lynch suggested cataract surgery, and without hesitation, Matt decided to have the surgery. And it changed his life.

“I’m a new man”, he said. Matt can now tell you the scores of all the games, look up the lobster roll and find the fried haddock at DiNatale’s, and even play Santa on Christmas day.



“It’s great! I see things very clearly now. I can even see the outline of the scores!”, he said. When asked what he wants everyone to know about the actual surgery, Matt said, “It was a really easy thing to do, from start-to-finish. I didn’t feel a thing and I was back home before I knew it. People shouldn’t be scared to get it done.”

If you are having blurry vision, we urge you to schedule an eye exam online at one of our 5 Bay Eye Center locations.