I’m Trying To Figure Out Exactly What Astigmatism Is?
October 7, 2009 by admin
Filed under FAQ on advance for astigmatism
I googled it but I get all this different stuff and I don’t understand how my cornea being shaped a different way does anything. I wore glasses before but haven’t owned a pair in a year. I never had astigmatism before. I went to the eye doctor and she said I have it in both eyes. Can anyone explain what it is. All the information I get is different.
I’ll try to explain it as simply as I can
Well the most common cause of astigmatism is the cornea being shaped like a football instead of a baseball. Another cause is the lens in your eye being misshapen in the same manner. When the light goes through a “perfect” non-astigmatic eye it lands perfectly on the retina and the person can see clearly. A cornea or lens with a surface of a smooth baseball bends (refracts) all incoming light the same way and makes a sharply focused image on the back of your eye (retina).
However, if your cornea or lens isn’t evenly and smoothly curved, the light rays aren’t refracted properly
Astigmatism, no matter the source, causes light passing through the cornea/lens to focus at more than one location on the retina, causing blurred vision and sometimes ghosting. So basically when the light doesn’t land on your retina correctly you can’t see well.
Don’t worry about it though hun!!! It’s quite common and easy too correct with eyeglasses or contacts
Your eye is shaped like a football because you watch too much sports.
Basically the easiest way to understand it is to imagine that “normal” eyes are spherical. Eyes with astigmatism are more football shaped (not the entire eye) but the part we see. Of course you can’t see it with the naked eye. But what that means is that when people have astigmatism and they wear contacts, the contacts have extra material on one part of it so that part is heavier and it causes the contact to sit a certain way on the eye at all times. Of course, if you turn your head, the contact would turn also because of gravity. But the contact has to sit a specific way on the eye because of the irregular shape, and different parts of the eye may need slightly different prescriptions.
It’s not a bad thing, and it’s very, very common. It just means that you might not have the easiest time getting colored contacts, and it also means you might have to get them ordered in as opposed to the optometrist having them in stock all the time.
No worries