Common Conditions
The quality of our vision directly affects the quality of our lives. Losing your ability to focus or getting a headache when you’re trying to read can become a major obstacle to learning and working. These symptoms are often the result of common eye conditions such as hyperopia, myopia, astigmatism and presbyopia. These are all conditions that your ophthalmologist can treat.
 |
Hyperopia, or farsightedness, occurs when the lens in the front of the eye does not sufficiently bend light rays entering the eye to focus them on the retina, the back area of the eye that sends the brain information about what the eye is seeing. This means that without glasses or contact lenses, it is difficult to see objects that are far away, but it is even harder to see things clearly that are up close.
 |
Myopia, or nearsightedness, occurs when the lens in the front of the eye bends light rays too powerfully and the image is focused in front of the retina instead of directly on the retina. This means that without glasses or contact lenses, it is difficult to see things clearly that are far away but the vision is clear when looking at things up close.
 |
Astigmatism occurs when light rays are focused at more than one point on the retina. This happens when the cornea has a slightly oval shape.
Without glasses or contact lenses, people with astigmatism may have a hard time seeing things that are both up close and far away. The image may also be distorted.
 |
Presbyopia is the natural worsening of vision that occurs with age. Sometime in your 40s or 50s, your eyes begin to lose their ability to change the shape of the lens to focus on near objects (accommodation). Besides a decreased ability to focus on near objects, you may also experience eyestrain and headaches. Laser vision correction does not alter the lens of your eye and does not correct this problem. However, there are LASIK procedures to create omnivision (also called monovision) that can help.
Back to top