“Excuse me. You have something in your eye.” It’s what Captain Obvious says to you when an eyelash goes rogue on an invasive mission. The bad part comes when everything is a blur, and you can’t pry the thing out. The eyelash is the evil cherry on top of astigmatism — which sounds like a condition where you carry a stick around or an attempt at a cool new band name.
With astigmatism, your lens is an ill-shaped football, and you suffer from visual distortions, such as blurriness in the affected eye, and migraines. Who needs a trip to the circus when you’re the bumbling clown with an eye — Heaven forbid two — as the funhouse mirror maze?
How Does Astigmatism Affect Your Eyes?
Astigmatism is a condition where your eye fails to refract — or bend — light properly as it hits the cornea and moves through your eyeball to the retina. Instead, light enters the eye unevenly which affects how your brain interprets images.
Normally, your cornea resembles a basketball, but when uneven, it’s shaped like a football and doesn’t bend the light properly to give your eyesight the optimal clarity. Your cornea can also have its own landscape when you have astigmatism, with steeper areas and rounder surfaces, leading to stretched out and blurry images. Welcome to the funhouse of astigmatism.
Who Gets to Be in the Mirror Maze?
Most people have slight astigmatism which does not require treatment or correction, so everyone is in the funhouse together to some degree. Many have astigmatism from birth, as you can inherit it, and it may increase or decrease over time. Some adults experience mild astigmatism without noticing the symptoms, as they’re busy with daily life. Kids may not notice if their vision changes, so eye exams are important for little ones, too.
Astigmatism can occur alongside other conditions such as nearsightedness (myopia) and farsightedness (hyperopia). Myopia typically develops in school-aged children as well as teens, and farsightedness has been known to arise from birth — moderate degrees are usually tolerable. Once these youth reach adulthood, the eye issues stabilize as the eyes grow. Contact lenses or eyeglasses are sometimes prescribed during this period for both conditions, and surgery is another option for all ages.
What’s Experiencing Astigmatism Like?
Symptoms of astigmatism include blurred or distorted vision of every distance, as well as headaches, eyestrain, squinting and difficulty with driving during night time. Distortion can include experiencing double vision, and remember, you may not notice these symptoms if you have mild astigmatism. Small print becomes difficult to read, and you may put that off as eyestrain if you work all day on the computer. Relying on squinting is a key to noticing something more serious is occurring.
Is the funhouse located in the Twilight Zone? Hopefully, it doesn’t start to resemble the fourth season of “American Horror Story.” There is a bonus, though. You can use astigmatism as an excuse for eating all the guilty pleasure processed food that you want. You couldn’t read the fine print on the ingredients list. Hello, extra fake cheese, please.
If you sense even slightly that something is off with your vision, don’t be afraid to get an eye exam. If you have these symptoms, make an appointment for a comprehensive dilated eye exam with an ophthalmologist and detail any changes you’ve had in your vision recently.
How Does the Ophthalmologist Correct Astigmatism?
There are three primary ways that the ophthalmologist — say it three times fast — treats and corrects astigmatism, some of which you’re familiar with:
- Eyeglasses: Glasses are the safest option for correcting astigmatism since they don’t involve any poking or prodding with your eyeballs. Eye care professionals adjust the lenses based on a prescription that’s comfortable and effective to correct your vision.
- Contact Lenses: Yeah, you have to do the thing where you widen your eye like a bug and stick that sucker in there, twice. Lenses are an effective and no-hassle option for many who don’t want to worry about losing their glasses. Contact lenses act as the first contact surface for light that enters your eye, correcting any refraction issues as light passes through. They’re comfortable and safe when used correctly.
- Refractive Surgery: Aliens with lasers aren’t the answer — exactly. This surgery aims to reshape your cornea to its proper basketball structure. LASIK is most widely performed of refractive surgeries and utilizes a laser to reshape the cornea. Alternatives include Conductive Keratoplasty (CK) for mild to moderate hyperopia and Phakic Intraocular Lenses (IOLs) as implanted lenses to correct multiple refraction errors that surgery can’t solve, for example.
Your lifestyle affects which treatment or solution you select. You may be more active and prefer contact lenses, or you may hate touching your eyeballs and opt for eyeglasses — which give you that wise hottie in a bookstore vibe.
You may not want to depend on either and head straight for refractive surgery. All of these are valid choices.
Get Your Eyes Checked Today
Most everyone has a bit of astigmatism, just like other human quirks — such as a weird pinky toe that curves inward.
For many others, astigmatism makes them feel like they’re in the funhouse, traveling through another dimension, but the letters on the signpost are too small — at least there’s extra fake cheese. Now, go make your eye exam appointment.
