Carolinas Centers For Sight

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Refractive Errors

Myopia (Nearsightedness)

Nearsighted individuals typically have problems seeing well at a distance and are forced to wear glasses or contact lenses. The nearsighted eye is usually longer than a normal eye, and its cornea may also be steeper. Therefore, when light passes through the cornea and lens, it is focused in front of the retina. This will make distant images appear blurred.

There are several refractive surgery solutions available to correct nearly all levels of nearsightedness.  LASIK and PRK are excellent surgical choices for many who feel the need to try to decrease their need for glasses.

Hyperopia (Farsightedness)

Farsighted individuals typically develop problems reading up close before the age of 40. The farsighted eye is usually slightly shorter than a normal eye and may have a flatter cornea. Thus, the light of distant objects focuses behind the retina unless the natural lens can compensate fully. Near objects require even greater focusing power to be seen clearly and therefore, blur more easily.

LASIK, Refractive Lens Exchange and Contact lenses are a few of the options available to correct farsightedness. For many, early cataract surgery with insertion of  a "Lifestyle" presbyopia-correcting intraocular lens implant is a good option.

Astigmatism

Asymmetric steepening of the cornea or natural lens causes light to be focused unevenly, the main optical problem in astigmatism. To individuals with uncorrected astigmatism, images may look blurry or shadowed. Astigmatism can accompany any form of refractive error and is very common.

Astigmatism can be corrected with glasses, contact lenses, corneal relaxing incisions, laser vision correction, and special implant lenses.

Presbyopia

Presbyopia is a condition that typically becomes noticeable for most people around age 40 to 45. In children and young adults, the lens inside the eye can easily focus on distant and near objects. With age, the lens loses its ability to change focus adequately.

Although presbyopia is not completely understood, it is thought that the lens and its supporting structures lose the ability to make the lens longer during close vision effort. To compensate, affected individuals usually find that holding reading material further away makes the image clearer. Ultimately, aids such as reading glasses or bifocals are typically needed by the mid-forties.

Besides glasses, presbyopia can be dealt with in a number of ways. Options include: monovision and multifocal contact lenses, monovision LASIK or PRK, and cataract surgery accompanied by the insertion of presbyopia-correcting implant lenses, such as ReSTOR, Tecnis, and Crystalens.