What is Astigmatism?
Astigmatism is one of the most common eye defects however many people suffer from it in a mild form and do not actually ever realize that they have this condition at all. If you have astigmatism in your eye(s) then the most obvious symptom is the fact that your vision can be blurry and your eyes themselves may seem out of synch in terms of the way that they see objects.
Sometimes you can have astigmatism but have no other problem with your sight. In other cases you may have short/near sight or long/far sight and have astigmatism as well. Astigmatism in general is measured on a scale depending on its severity.
In some particularly severe cases the astigmatism effects may cause you other physical problems. So, for example, some people suffer from headaches, eye strain from squinting and blurred vision that impairs their everyday lives.
Astigmatism is actually caused because your eye is not constructed in the normal way. Your cornea, for example, should be round and ball-shaped. If you have astigmatism, however, your cornea will be more of an oval shape. This prevents light from being processed by the eye in the regular manner.
Normally when light enters your eye it goes in and out in a specific way and has a specific destination. If you have astigmatism, however, then the shape of your cornea prevents this from happening and the light is bounced around and can be directed to more than one destination. This is what can cause the blurred vision so often associated with this condition.
Most people will suffer from one of two primary types of astigmatism. The first is irregular astigmatism. This condition is most often sorted out by wearing specially prescribed contact lenses. It is unlikely that wearing glasses will be of any help to you with this kind of astigmatism.
The second type of astigmatism is known as regular astigmatism. This kind of problem may, conversely, best be treated with the use of prescription glasses rather than contact lenses.
Nowadays many astigmatism sufferers choose instead to use eye surgery as an alternative to wearing glasses or contact lenses. In some cases you can opt to have your astigmatism treated in itself and in others you may find that it can be treated at the same time as you are having eye surgery for a different kind of vision problem such as short/near sight or long/far sight.
In both cases the surgery here will correct the defects in your cornea with the aim of making it more ball shaped than oval shaped. This can be done by making surgical cuts into the cornea to flatten it or by using a specially designed laser treatment.
The results that you see here will vary according to the severity of your condition. And, in some cases, you may find that you will not be recommended surgery in the first place if the make-up of your eye itself and the severity of your astigmatism are too severe.