astigmatism?

Question

when the optometrist says you have astigmatism. exactly what is he saying?

Answer 1

Ok...the first two answers are correct, but let me break it down in plain english from someone who has had astigmatism & near-sightedness many, many years...I've worn glasses since the age of 7.

It means your eyes (corneas) are shaped like a football & never focus the same way twice.

It's always a struggle for me (during the exam) when they flip those lens to see which picture is better...I can never tell. I always schedule my eye exams very early in the morning, because my optometrist says it should be before my eyes see to much.

Answer 2

An Astigmatism is when your actual eyeball isn't shaped the right way. A normal eyeball should be round. A person with an Astigmatism has an eye that is more oblong, like a football. Hope I helped. :)

Answer 3

And if you fancy a lighter note about astigmatism??....talking from experience as a person with this condition myself........there are a few guidelines - a) Don't wear stripey clothes, especially black and white vertical stripes!! unless you want to give yourself a headache. b) Don't sit near anyone with vertical or horizontal stripey clothes on because THEY'LL give you a headache also c) have designs in your home with circles, curves and waves, not sharp abrupt lines everywhere. d) all vertical surfaces and horizontal surfaces will 'fight' for your visual attention, and only one of these can 'win' at any one time, being more prominent than the other. So, give yourself a break and take up periodic meditation during the day, close your eyes. e) Give your eyes a rest by watching things like sea waves, sunsets, hills and sooth the astigmatism now and again! f) So......the optometrist is saying.........cool it.........even though your eyeballs are deformed....a little bit of horizontal/vertical knowledge goes a long way!!!

Hope this helps and brings you a chuckle :-)

Answer 4

Astigmatism usually occurs when the front surface of the eye, the cornea, has an irregular curvature. Astigmatism is one of a group of eye conditions known as refractive errors. Refractive errors cause a disturbance in the way that light rays are focused within the eye. Astigmatism often occurs with nearsightedness and farsightedness, conditions also resulting from refractive errors. Astigmatism is not a disease nor does it mean that you have "bad eyes." It simply means that you have a variation or disturbance in the shape of your cornea.

Answer 5

Definition

Astigmatism is the result of an inability of the cornea to properly focus an image onto the retina. The result is a blurred image.

Description

The cornea is the outermost part of the eye. It is a transparent layer that covers the colored part of the eye (iris), pupil, and lens. The cornea bends light and helps to focus it onto the retina where specialized cells (photo receptors) detect light and transmit nerve impulses via the optic nerve to the brain where the image is formed. The cornea is dome shaped. Any incorrect shaping of the cornea results in an incorrect focusing of the light that passes through that part of the cornea. The bending of light is called refraction and focusing problems with the cornea are called diseases of refraction or refractive disorders. Astigmatism is an image distortion that results from an improperly shaped cornea. Usually the cornea is spherically shaped, like a baseball. However, in astigmatism the cornea is elliptically shaped, more like a football. There is a long meridian and a short meridian. These two meridians generally have a constant curvature and are generally perpendicular to each other (regular astigmatism). Irregular astigmatism may have more than two meridians of focus and they may not be 90° apart. A point of light, therefore, going through an astigmatic cornea will have two points of focus, instead of one nice sharp image on the retina. This will cause the person to have blurry vision. What the blur looks like will depend upon the amount and the direction of the astigmatism. A person with nearsightedness (myopia) or farsightedness (hyperopia) may see a dot as a blurred circle. A person with astigmatism may see the same dot as a blurred oval or frankfurter-shaped blur.

Some cases of astigmatism are caused by problems in the lens of the eye. Minor variations in the curvature of the lens can produce minor degrees of astigmatism (lenticular astigmatism). In these patients, the cornea is usually normal in shape. Infants, as a group, have the least amount of astigmatism. Astigmatism may increase during childhood, as the eye is developing.

Causes and symptoms

The main symptom of astigmatism is blurring. People can also experience headaches and eyestrain. Parents can notice that a child may have astigmatism when the child can see some part of a pattern or picture more clearly than others. For example, lines going across may seem clearer than lines going up and down.

Regular astigmatism can be caused by the weight of the upper eyelid resting on the eyeball creating distortion, surgical incisions in the cornea, trauma or scarring to the cornea, the presence of tumors in the eyelid, or a developmental factor. Irregular astigmatism can be caused by scarring or keratoconus. Keratoconus is a condition in which the cornea thins and becomes cone shaped. It usually occurs around puberty and is more common in women. Although the causes of keratoconus are unknown, it may be hereditary or a result of chronic eye rubbing, as in people with allergies. The center of the cone may not be in line with the center of the cornea. Diabetes can play a role in the development of astigmatism. High blood sugar levels can cause shape changes in the lens of the eye. This process usually occurs slowly and, often, is only noticed when the diabetic has started treatment to control their blood sugar. The return to a more normal blood sugar allows the lens to return to normal and this change is sometimes noticed by the patient as farsightedness. Because of this, diabetics should wait until their blood sugar is under control for at least one month to allow vision to stabilize before being measured for eyeglasses.

Answer 6

Different refractions in different axes(more than one axis) of cornea is astigmatism . If cornea has an error +0.25 diopters in vertical plane and +0.5 diopters in horizontal plane it is astigmatism. Almost everyone has this type of astigmatism Astigmatim can be hypermetropic or myopic. Astigmatism can also be "according to the rule " or against the rule" depending upon weather defect is in vertical or horizontal meridian . This is corrected by cylindrical lens as against spherical lens of normal correction of myopia or hypermetropia. Irregular astigmatism of corneal diseases is corrected by contact lens.

Answer 7

Most people believe that once they are diagnosed with some vision problem and start wearing eye glasses or contact lenses to correct them, they will have to do so for life in order to see better. Those who want a permanent solution to improve eyesight typically resort to Lasik or other corrective eye surgeries. But you you can also improve your vision without surgery and can see perfectly well without using eyeglasses or contact lenses. You can check here to know how https://tr.im/33c02

Answer 8

By Judith Lee and Gretchyn Bailey;
reviewed by Dr. Vance Thompson;
Flash illustration by Stephen Bagi

"What is a stigmatism?" is a question that optometrists hear every day, but actually it's spelled "astigmatism." Astigmatism is the most common vision problem, but most people don't know what it is.

It may accompany nearsightedness or farsightedness. Usually it is caused by an irregularly shaped cornea (called corneal astigmatism). But sometimes it is the result of an irregularly shaped lens, which is located behind the cornea; this is called lenticular astigmatism. Either kind of astigmatism can usually be corrected with eyeglasses, contact lenses or refractive surgery.

Astigmatism Symptoms and Signs
If you have only a small amount of astigmatism, you may not notice it or have just slightly blurred vision. But sometimes uncorrected astigmatism can give you headaches or eyestrain, and distort or blur your vision at all distances.

It's not only adults who can be astigmatic. Dr. Karla Zadnik, an optometrist at Ohio State University School of Optometry, found in a recent study of 2,523 children that more than 28 percent of them had astigmatism. Children may be even more unaware of the condition than adults, and they are unlikely to complain of the blurred or distorted vision. Unfortunately, astigmatism can affect their ability to see well in school and during sports, so it's important to have their eyes examined at regular intervals in order to detect any astigmatism early on. Read more about the recommended frequency of eye exams for children.

What Causes Astigmatism?
Astigmatism occurs when the cornea is shaped more like an oblong football than a spherical baseball, which is the normal shape. In most astigmatic eyes, the oblong or oval shape causes light rays to focus on two points in the back of your eye, rather than on just one. This is because, like a football, an astigmatic cornea has a steeper curve and a flatter one.

In regular astigmatism, the meridians in which the two different curves lie are located 180 degrees apart. In irregular astigmatism, the two meridians may be located at something other than 180 degrees apart; or there are more than two meridians. Regular astigmatism is usually easy to correct (see treatments below), but irregular astigmatism can be complicated and more difficult to correct, depending on the extent of the irregularity and its cause.

Usually astigmatism is hereditary: many people are born with an oblong cornea, and the resulting vision problem may get worse over time. But astigmatism may also result from an eye injury that has caused scarring on the cornea, from certain types of eye surgery, or from keratoconus, a disease that causes a gradual thinning of the cornea.

Astigmatism Treatment
Unless it is extreme, astigmatism can be compensated for satisfactorily with eyeglasses or contact lenses. If your eyeglass or contact lens prescription contains three parts rather than one, your eyecare practitioner has found some astigmatism in one or both of your eyes. A prescription with three parts looks like this:
-2.75 -1.25 x 90.

The first part indicates your main spherical correction, meaning the amount of power (in diopters) required in a lens to sharpen your visual acuity to an acceptable level, usually 20/20. In this example, the person has myopia and requires a negative (concave) lens to correct it.

Part two shows the extent of the astigmatism in diopters. Again, the minus sign means a concave lens is needed.

Part three is the axis (in degrees) of the cylinder required to bend certain light rays to compensate for the cornea's oval shape.


Many people with astigmatism believe that they can't wear contact lenses, or that only rigid contact lenses (RGPs, also called GP lenses) can correct astigmatism. (Read more about RGP contact lenses.)

This was true many years ago, but now there are soft contacts that correct astigmatism; they are called toric contact lenses. Toric lenses have a special correction built into them and may also contain a prescription for nearsightedness or farsightedness if you need it. (Read more about toric contact lenses.)

While soft torics work well for many people, if you have severe astigmatism, you'll likely do better with RGP contact lenses or eyeglasses. Your eyecare practitioner will advise you.

Depending on the type and severity of your astigmatism, you may also be able to have it corrected with refractive surgery. Discuss with your eye doctor which procedure is best to correct your astigmatism, and review your options in our LASIK & Vision Surgery section.

Answer 9

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Answer 10

In layman's terms...If you are looking at something with lines going up and down, and also going left to right, you can focus on the horizontal ones OR the vertical ones. But not both directions at the same time.