Astigmatism | Eye Contact Guide

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Common Vision Disorders

The most common vision disorders requiring corrective contact lenses include:

Hyperopia (Far Sightedness)

People with far sightedness have trouble seeing objects up close. Sewing, reading or using the computer may become difficult causing eye strain and headaches.

Hyperopia or far sightedness occurs as a result of an imperfection in the eye. When light enters the eye it focuses behind the retina instead of directly on it resulting in blurring of the image.
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Myopia (Short Sightedness)

People with short sightedness have trouble seeing objects at a distance. Driving a car may be difficult as the road signs can’t be seen clearly and children at the back of the class may have trouble seeing the chalk board at school.

Myopia occurs when the shape of the eyeball is slightly longer than normal. Light entering the eye focuses in front of the retina instead of directly onto it causing a blurred image.
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Presbyopia (Age Related)

Presbyopia occurs in most people as a result of the aging process. The eyes gradually lose their capacity to see things at close range. This is why you may see people holding a book or newspaper at arms length as it becomes easier to read the further away it is.
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Astigmatism

Astigmatism occurs when the cornea of the eye is oval shaped instead of round or when the lens of the eye is an irregular shape. The result is blurred vision as the light entering the eye cannot focus correctly onto the retina.
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Great News for Astigmatism Sufferers – Multi-focal Contact Lenses!

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In the early days of contact lenses, anyone with astigmatism was deemed unsuitable to wear them. Now – technology has advanced and unless your prescription is particularly complicated, your astigmatism may be corrected with multifocus contact lenses.

Hang on – you’ve lost me…what is astigmatism?

Astigmatism is a condition of the cornea of the eye. The cornea is the clear ‘layer’ of the eye that covers the iris (the colored part) and the pupil (the black dot in the middle). The function of the cornea is to let light into the eye, which allows you to see.

A ‘normal’ cornea is shaped like a tennis ball. Light enters it and is focused on a single point of the retina. The retina is a membrane lining the eye. It gets images via the lens of the eye which are changed into signals and sent to the brain via the optic nerve.

If you have astigmatism, your cornea is shaped more like an egg. This means that the light is focused on more than one point on the retina and this gives you blurry vision. It can also cause you to see shadows on letters when you’re reading, make you squint and cause double vision.
Toric Contact Lenses May Be The Answer…

A toric contact lens has two different strengths of prescription. These are at right angles to each other which corrects the astigmatism. Torics are available in soft lenses, rigid gas permeable ones and also multifocals.

In order to correct the astigmatism, the contact lens must stay in one position in the eye. There are two ways to achieve this.

1. The lenses have a ‘ballast’ – the bottom edge of the lens is thicker than the top edge, which prevents it moving around or

2. The middle of the lens is thicker than the top and bottom edges.

What Sort Of Torics Are Available?

* Daily disposable
* Monthly Disposable
* Frequent replacement
* Silicone hydrogel for 30 day wear
* Eye color changers
* Eye color enhancers

What Other Multifocal Contact Lenses Are There?

Aspheric contacts have different prescriptions blended across them. They are known as ‘simultaneous vision’ or ‘progressive’ lenses as your eyes have to learn how to choose to see through the appropriate prescription for what you are doing.

This sounds very complicated but aspherics are the most popular type of multifocal contact lens so it can’t be that difficult!

Many people can and do. There may be a period of trial and error while you work with your eye care professional to find what’s best.

Most multi-focal contact lens manufacturers are aware that not everyone will be able to wear them. For this reason, they offer a warranty on their lenses so that if you’re unlucky and can’t get on with them, you can get a different pair of lenses or a pair of spectacles. However, part of the money that you pay to have contact lenses fitted is for the professional time taken during that fitting and subsequent follow-ups. So you may not get back the whole amount that you paid to try the multi-focals. However, you should leave the eye doctor with some form of eyewear that corrects your vision.

Biomedics Contact Lenses

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Biomedics contact lenses produced by a division of CooperVision known as Ocular Sciences, use an advanced light focusing system to provide sharper, clearer vision at any prescription strength.

One of the challenges that contact lens manufacturers face is the difficulty of correcting aberrations in the spherical surface of the lenses as well as in the human eye itself. These aberrations can prevent incoming light from being clearly focused on a single point, causing the images that contact lens wearers see to be slightly blurry or indistinct.

Biomedics lenses have met this challenge with their aspheric lens, which outperforms other manufacturers in creating sharp, clearly focused images in clinical studies. No matter how weak or strong your vision prescription is, it can be improved with Biomedics contact lenses.

Marketed under a variety of different names, including Ultraflex, Sofmed, Polysoft, and Perspecta, Biomedics contact lenses are a very popular brand. They are known for their stability and their ease of use as well as for their clarity. Furthermore, Biomedics has patented a thinner edge design, which makes their lenses more comfortable to wear all day long.

Another breakthrough for the Biomedics contact lenses is the development of the Biomedics XC line. These lenses are the first two-week disposable lenses to use PC technology.

PC technology incorporates molecules of phosphorylcholine, a water-attracting substance that naturally occurs in human cell membranes, into the lens composition.

The XC line of Biomedics lenses stay unusually moist and comfortable to wear throughout their two-week lifetime. PC technology helps them resist dirt build-up to remain as crystal clear at the end of the two-week period as they were when they were first worn.

Biomedics contact lenses are also available for people with astigmatism and in the Biomedics 1 Day occular line

Astigmatism: Understanding and Correcting Your Astigmatism

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Many people are told by their eye doctors that they have an eye condition known as astigmatism, without fully understanding what this means. The actual details of an astigmatism are quite complicated and interesting and people would generally take better care of their eyes if they knew exactly what this diagnosis means in relation to their ability to see now and in the future.

Astigmatism is actually a faulty type of vision that is caused by an uneven curvature or shape in the refractive surfaces of the eye. The areas of the eye that are usually involved in the cause of an astigmatism are the cornea and the lens, with the cornea being the most common cause of faulty vision. Because of the uneven curvature of either the cornea or the lens, light rays are unable to reach a single focal point behind the retina. What this means is that some of the light rays focus on the retina while others focus in front of or even behind it.

Although many experts believe that astigmatism is a congenital condition, disease or injury to the eye are other causes. Astigmatism is not a condition that occurs alone; it is likely to occur with either nearsightedness and farsightedness, which can make getting a prescription for glasses or contact lenses more involved. To help those with an astigmatism to focus, the optical dispenser will need to ensure that the prescription glasses take into account the astigmatism as well as needing to modify the spherical lenses that typically correct other vision problems. Astigmatism can be corrected with both contact lenses and glasses, though most experts agree that it is best corrected with contact lenses. Astigmatism is like other vision problems, it occurs in varying degrees from very mild to quite severe.

In recent years advances have been made in the treatment of astigmatism, as LASIK procedures are now available to correct faulty vision. These procedures work to even out the refractive surfaces of the eye so that the patient can see well without the use of glasses or contacts. These procedures are becoming more advanced all the time, making them much more affordable and realistic for astigmatism patients everywhere.