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Astigmatism

By Bjarne Lühr Hansen PhD, MD and Philipp Skafte-Holm MD, Mentor Institute

In the case of astigmatism the cornea has a slightly oval shape. This means that the light is refracted unevenly in different levels and therefore, the light does not hit the same point on the retina. Thereby, the eyesight is weakened.

Most people have small insignificant astigmatism that most often is congenital and only alters slightly in the course of a lifetime.

If you have astigmatism you generally experience that the vision is blurry. You squeeze the eyes together and blink in an effort to see more clearly. A dot will for example appear as an oval dot or a small line. Horizontal, vertical and diagonal lines does not appear clearly. Possibly, you see double with the eye that has astigmatism. When you try to compensate for the difficulties with the eyesight, it can lead to tension headache.

Astigmatism is measured and evaluated with your optician or your ophthalmologist. Most often, the treatment consists of glasses or contact lenses. If the astigmatism is significant or a great bother, it can be remedied by laser surgery.

Further reading on Frequent signs.

What can you do?

If you have trouble seeing clearly, you should contact an optician.

What can your optician do?

The optician can examine whether you have astigmatism, are long-sighted or short-sighted and treat with glasses and/or contact lenses. If satisfying eyesight is not accomplished, the optician refers you to an ophthalmologist.

Contact the doctor tomorrow

Refer you to an ophthalmologist or an optician.

Contact the doctor immediately

With the ophthalmologist you can attain information about the possibilities of surgery to remove the difficulties with the eyesight. The possibilities are either laser treatment of the cornea of the eye or surgery of the lens of the eye.