have you heard the crazy word astigmatism and wondering what it
is and if you have it we'll buckle up in this video i describe
exactly what it is and what symptoms you may be having if you have astigmatism let's focus in
hey howdy everybody i'm dr neal guymon dr eyeguy with the show that focuses on keeping your eyes
the healthiest and your vision the clearest i do a lot of educational videos just like
this one as well as how to and review videos subscribe for my future eye guy videos and
also check below for any additional links and my eye guy recommendations otherwise let's focus on
astigmatism now what is astigmatism when i tell patients that they have astigmatism it sounds
horrible it's the worst sounding word that i usually can tell patients
it sounds like an evil disease and it almost makes you think that you have an instant death
sentence but i'm here to tell you it's not an evil disease and you won't go blind from it
people usually think when they hear the word astigmatism and it's separated out so
uh stigmatism or stigma or maybe just the word stigmatism but it's actually combined astigmatism
now the meaning of the word comes from the greek a meaning without and then stigma meaning spot
without spot and that's exactly what astigmatism does now your eye is designed to focus light to
a single point on the back of your eye so you can see things clearly even people that have
nearsightedness or far-sightedness they're still able to focus that light to a single point but
maybe it's just not where that point should be people that have astigmatism it does not focus it
to a single point instead that point is stretched out now it's estimated that 33 of the people in
the world have astigmatism that's one in three people are walking around with astigmatism in fact
if you wear glasses or contacts right now you have a 70 chance that you have astigmatism as well now
astigmatism is all about the curvature of your eye the common place where people have this curvature
to it is the cornea the corny is that clear portion of the eye that covers the color part of
the eye the iris this is where a contact would sit now a common analogy that many doctors use will
say hey you have astigmatism so your eye is shaped like a football people that don't have astigmatism
their eyes shaped like a basketball usually what they mean by that if you have a spherical
prescription or no astigmatism at all that means that your cornea has the same curve to it no
matter which direction that you go so it's kind of like a sphere like a basketball now if you have
astigmatism they'll usually analogy that your eye is shaped like a football meaning that you have
one section of your cornea that has a curve to it and then another section of your cornea has a
steeper curve to it more of a curve than the other one making it not uniform around now if you have a
cornea that has different curves depending on what direction that you're measuring that's what causes
that point to be stretched and not focused on a single point one portion of your eye is focusing
for a certain point while the other portion of the eye is focusing for a different point and that's
what stretches that image out another common place to have astigmatism is actually called lenticular
astigmatism or you'll have this curvature inside the lens the lens is right behind the iris the
color part of the eye and you can have that same type of astigmatism or different curves to this
lens that can cause astigmatism now most people that have astigmatism have regular astigmatism
meaning that astigmatism follows certain types of rules the curvature that we measure
usually will be on a 90 degree degree axis from each other so if you have a steeper curve in
this area and a flatter curve there they usually kind of follow that same rule depending on where
your curve of your eye is now there's some people that have irregular astigmatism meaning they don't
follow the same rules those people that have irregular stigmatism usually have a condition
now one of these conditions that can cause irregular astigmatism is called keratoconus
keratoconus is kind of like having a beer belly or a dad bod belly right on your cornea the cornea
will have a normal curve but also in this little bulge will show up causing irregular astigmatism
or irregular curvature to it hey let me know down in the comments if you thought i was going to say
beer belly or dad bod belly in this video about astigmatism now how do we correct for astigmatism
luckily most people that have regular astigmatism can be corrected with glasses
contacts or even surgery like lasik or prk now people that have these irregular astigmatisms
there's also corrections there sometimes you can correct the vision with glasses can be a little
bit more difficult just because of that irregular curve but there's contact lenses as well like i
mentioned before specialty contacts called scleral lenses can correct for that irregular cornea very
well and give people actually very good vision there's also hybrid lenses that have a hard lens
in the middle with a soft lens skirt around it to try and help with the comfort of hard lenses
so there's definitely options out there for your astigmatism depending on what type of astigmatism
you have you'll want to go and check with your eye doctor to see what kind of options are out there
for you now for the part of the video to see if you might have astigmatism now if you're wearing
glasses right now one trick that you can do is actually take the glasses off and hold them right
out in front of you i want you to find something with a straight edge maybe the door opening
the side of the tv or a window i want you to look at that straight edge and i want you to rotate
your glasses from left to right if you notice that straight edge is also rotating or distorting
you likely have astigmatism correction in your glasses here's a little example of an astigmatism
lens when i kind of rotate it looking at me do you see how i kind of distort a little bit
i might look weird and my face gets thinner or fatter and now here's a lens that does not have
any astigmatism correction in it it's just for nearsightedness and i'm rotating it you can see
it doesn't distort my face or anything now if you have contacts and you're wondering if you have
astigmatism correction in your contacts usually it will say it on the box it will either say
toric lenses or it will actually say that you have contacts for astigmatism another way you
can tell is if you look at the side of the box they'll have different sets of numbers and one
that's labeled cyl that stands for cylinder if you have that on your box of contacts then you have
astigmatism correction in your contacts i'm just going to run real quick through a prescription
glasses prescription or contact lens prescription so you can know if you have astigmatism correction
in there as well if you have your printed out prescription from your doctor let's take a look
so here's an example of what a basic printout of a prescription might look like i'll do a quick
run through of what all these mean i'll have a video coming out shortly about how to read your
prescription exactly but over here on the left you have od and os meaning right eye and left eye od
is right eye os is left eye now this first section here that's labeled sphere that usually indicates
whether you're nearsighted or you're farsighted now the next section is what i want you to pay
attention to it's labeled cyl or cylinder that is the amount of astigmatism that you have in your
prescription now that third section the axis that is in degrees so 180 degrees for the right eye
90 degrees for the left eye and that is indicating where the flat portion of your cornea is at and
this axis number is important so they can orient the glasses or the contacts to match the correct
curvatures of your eye now if you do not have astigmatism correction in your prescription
in the cylinder section you'll either see a zero or sometimes it'll be left blank
sometimes you'll see the letters d s for dioptric sphere either way if you're not seeing a
number or a number in the axis section then likely you do not have the astigmatism in your correction
now let's say you don't know if you have astigmatism you're wondering what kind of
symptoms you might be experiencing if you have astigmatism so let me show you some examples
of what you might be experiencing if you have astigmatism so this is with six diopters of
astigmatism quite a bit here and you can see definitely blurs the vision distorts it
and then here's 90 degrees away and here is the letter chart with six diopters of astigmatism
definitely making things fuzzy not as crisp we'll go 90 degrees away this makes you sick just
looking at it here stretching the image it's not a single point versus boom single point and clear
here's an example of what it might look like driving at night with astigmatism
i use christmas lights as the example because astigmatism really does stretch out those points
of light instead of making one single point it stretches out makes it blurry and distorted
definitely causes a blur and usually can cause a blur at all distances it can be far away it can be
close up it can be on your computer it can be the dashboard like i said because it doesn't focus a
light to a single point that blur can come from any distance that you're looking at people
usually experience this blur or distortion more at nighttime a lot of times when i have patients that
come in the clinic and say hey i see well but maybe at night time when i'm driving at night
my vision is just not as clear that's usually the first thought that comes into my head is
they probably have astigmatism now this this blur sometimes people say it almost looks like
a stretched image or sometimes people use the word double vision or a ghosting image that comes off
letters or certain things that they're looking at now close it can cause the blur and distortion but
it makes it tricky for the eyes to focus on things so people that read for a long amount of time or
they're using the computer all day long sometimes can cause eye strain and headaches because the
eye just doesn't know where to focus because it doesn't have a single point that it's looking at
your eye will almost act like a camera or camera lens trying to find that best focal point and so
sometimes the vision will kind of go in and out people have to blink to get it clear and they'll
go clear but then like the vision will go out again and then they'll have to bring it back so
sometimes people will say that i just have this in and out clarity of vision when i'm on the computer
sometimes it's good and sometimes it'll blink and that's bad and when it's constantly doing
this it'll cause the eye to strain and cause their eyes to hurt and sometimes they'll get a headache
and so they'll come into the clinic saying hey i get headaches and strain when i'm on the computer
what can i do one possible reason is because they have astigmatism that is uncorrected for and their
eyes are just constantly trying to find the best focal point and they strain out and get tired now
if you're having any of these symptoms that i just showed you definitely a good idea to make
an appointment for an eye exam to see if you have astigmatism because glasses or contacts definitely
can help people with astigmatism remember to comment below for any questions that you might
have about astigmatism or anything else i am here to help hey and remember to go check out my other
videos i'll put a link right up here hey thanks for watching again i'm dr neal guymon dr eyeguy
committed to looking out for you and your eyes stay focused and i'll see you in the next video