A Guide To Astigmatism Correction

Astigmatism is a common kind of visual issue. It is often associated with other kinds of eye defects such as myopia (short/near sightedness) and hyperopia (long/far sightedness) but can be a problem in itself even if you have no other visual problems. Your astigmatism will generally affect your focus — i.e. sufferers from this issue often see things slightly blurred and out of focus.

Astigmatism itself is usually caused because your cornea is not the kind of round shape that it ought to be. With this condition your cornea is slightly oval instead. This results in the light that enters the eye not being focused on one point as is the norm but on a variety of different points.

There are actually two types of visual astigmatism. The first, irregular astigmatism, is often managed by the use of contact lenses rather than glasses from an everyday perspective. The second, regular astigmatism, may be better managed with glasses.

So, nowadays many cases of astigmatism can be corrected quite easily. For some people, as already mentioned, this is simply a question of opting for prescription glasses or contact lenses. For others it may involve some form of surgery if they want to try and correct the problem once and for all.

So, for example, in some cases you may be offered a surgical solution known as Astigmatic Keratotomy (AK). Here your astigmatism is cured by a few small incisions that are made on your cornea. This changes the shape of the cornea making it more of a round traditional shape.

This kind of surgery is often used for people who have astigmatism without the related problems of myopia or hyperopia. It is also offered as an add on procedure for people undergoing cataract surgery.

Most people looking to have their astigmatism corrected, however, will have this done during some form of corrective laser surgery such as LASIK or PRK procedures. Here a flap is either cut into the cornea or its surface is abraded either by cutting or laser treatment. Then a laser is used to work on the underlying tissues to solve the problem itself.

Here your astigmatism problem may well be addressed as part of a broader surgical procedure (i.e. to sort out your myopia or hypertopia) or can be looked at in isolation. It is, however, not definite that corrective eye surgery will actually cure your astigmatism and you need to have it checked out first to see what the chances of success are here.

For example, many eye surgeons will only recommend corrective eye surgery for astigmatism if your condition falls within certain levels. If your astigmatism is particularly severe then the chances are that these kinds of surgery will not make a significant difference to you.

There are also other issues that can come into play here and a surgeon also needs to check out the general composition of your eye before recommending corrective surgery. So the actual size of your pupils and your cornea’s depth may also be taken under consideration in this instance.