One or both of your cat’s eyes has become bluish-gray in color and looks opaque. Is she suffering vision loss because of a cataract? Probably not.
Most often, it’s an age-related condition called lenticular sclerosis. As a cat grows older, new structural fibers grow in the outer region of her eye lens. The old fibers, rather than being shed, are compacted within the lens’s central region. But the eye still receives light, and the cat is able to see. With a cataract, light is impeded or totally prevented from passing through to the retina, hindering vision.
It can be hard to tell lenticular sclerosis from a cataract just by looking, so take your cat for an eye exam for a proper diagnosis — and treatment if it does turn out that a cataract has developed.
