Astigmatism..

[maybethistimeround]

Dd has been told she has quite bad astigmatism? OptOptician was abit vague about it all. She needs glasses as a result. I wear glasses bit I'm not sure if I have it?
Can anyone shed any light?
I have trouble with distance and both my parents and Dhs parents wear glasses for reading but dh's eyes are fine...

I'm not an optician, but I do have astigmatism...

Basically, astigmatism is a problem with the shape of the eyeball. The optician who diagnosed mine described it as the eyeball being rugby-ball-shaped, rather than spherical. This results in print, etc looking blurry even when short/long sightedness have been corrected for.

If you have a copy of your (or your DDs) glasses prescription, there are usually a few numbers for each eye.

The first is the short or long sightedness bit: + for longsighted, - for shortsighted.

The astigmatism is usually the second one: + for an eye shaped like an "upright" rugby ball, - for "lengthwise" rugby ball, iyswim...

E.g. my right eye prescription is -3.25 (shortsighted), -2.25 (astigmatism).

Hope that helps (and that an optician comes along soon with a better explanation than mine)!

I have that. As mentioned above, it causes blurriness. I'm actually long sighted but without my glasses it feels like I'm short sighted due to astigmatism. Obviously with glasses, it's fine.

Thanks spiral! I do have her prescription it was all Abit daunting looking at the numbers! So do you have trouble with both your short and long vision?

Thatstoast do you have trouble with your long sisigt without glasses too?

Sight* sorry

Astigmatism affects all your vision equally - a bit like being permanently bleary eyed or trying to peer at the world through vaseline.

The prescription for astigmatism is the cyl(inder) part of the prescription form, which describes the strength and the direction of the distortion. The cyl number given can be + or -, but rather than describing long or short sightedness, it actually depends on which method is being used to define the astigmatism - Boots and Specsavers use the two different systems, so they usually have to convert your prescription if you go from one store to the other.

It's hard to say because my astigmatism is so bad. I think without it I wouldn't need to wear glasses as the correction for long sightedness is very slight.

Do your parents have astigmatism? Just wondering why she has it? Is it an inherited thing?

My mum and siblings all have it, to some extent (wouldn't know about my dad because he's an awkward so and so). DS2 has it, but DS1 doesn't. He's inherited his dad's short sight, instead and will probably end up needing jam jar bottoms by the time he's an adult.

I'm not quite at the point of the creeping long sightedness of middle age, but am getting there - my optician thinks I have a couple of years left before varifocals.

Just short sighted at the moment, but ouryve has it spot on with the "peering through vaseline" description of astigmatism. Even looking at something close up enough to negate my short sightedness, it's all still blurry, never ever sharp and clear.

I'm long-sighted with astigmatism (different in each eye).

No idea where either thing came from, no-one else in the family has glasses, so probably recessive genes that just happened to arrive from both sides in me.

Dd has inherited both traits, though not with as strong a prescription as me.

It is corrected for easily with glasses. Makes contact lenses a bit more expensive than a simpler prescription.

DH and I both have it and we're both short sighted. Someone up thread said it's like looking through Vaseline which is the perfect description. If my short sightedness is corrected I still can't see properly as it's blurred. But glasses correct it perfectly. It's just an added component for an optician to check and correct for with yoir prescription but very common and nothing to worry about.

Ok thanks everyone :) was just a little confused about it all as I can't remember my optician ever mentioning me having astigmatism and I know dh has really good vision. My dad's eyes are really bad, mum just needs them for distance. Dh's parents is more of just a deteriation with age thing i think. Never even heard of it before. Dd is getting her glasses thus week bless her she's so excited!

Evertonmint do you struggle to read a book up close? Dd says she can see a book fine with no blurriness but the optician seems to think otherwise?

I do struggle. I can make out the words so can read fine but the edges of the words aren't crisp, a bit blurry, and it takes a bit of effort for my eyes to focus.

I have astigmatism and I am short sighted as well. I've been wearing glasses to correct both for nearly 50 years, since I was 4.
No one else in my family has astigmatism though.
Without my glasses I can read quite well close up, but as I move the writing away the astigmatism becomes more noticeable, then the shortsightedness. Because of the astigmatism I can see vertical lines more clearly than horizontal ones, so that a capital H looks more like I I. Thankfully my glasses correct the problem completely.

Thanks for all the brill info, definitely more clued up on the whole situation. Optician just gave me a vague description and fobbed me off. Was worried it may have been caused by something sinister or maybe I had it and didn't know (my eyes really are awful and I've not been for a test in years)
at least her glasses will sort it. Can you grow out of it or is it with her for life then?)

I thought this thread was going to be about bleeding from the palms of hands on Good Friday....

It's not always easily corrected by wearing glasses. Mine is so bad now my glasses are almost useless. I had surgery which helped for a while but am now struggling to wear hard contacts. They're great bit i struggle to wear them for long

I have that with lines, too. Even with my glasses on, stripy tops cause me problems because the body and sleeves look like they're completely different shades. DH had a fine striped pyjama top and I couldn't even look at him without my glasses on, when he was wearing it because it made me feel quite queasy!

I have it too and one advice: please avoid loud patterns, stripes in particular and heavily contrasted fabrics, they make astigmats feel queasy and for me it feels like the prints become 3 dimensional!

But drew does that affect you with glasses? My glasses correct my astigmatism otherwise I couldn't function, so I wear them all day and am not affected by it. I can't imagine when you'd be that affected by bright colours/patterns etc unless you're not actually using glasses??

Dd has it. It's something to do with the shape of the eye making it hard to focus. For example if dd is wearing her glasses she's fine but if she's wearing her contacts she has to work a bit more.

It's all very confusing

I have astigamatism and find it difficult to line up data across a single line and feel short sighted when watching tv or driving. I wear contacts which over correct so I find reading close up difficult . DS is the same.

I tend not to wear my glasses at work as I'm short sighted and get easily tired reading a computer screen with them on. It's still bad but not to same extent with glasses on.