Understanding Vision
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 the cornea may also be steeper. As a result, when light passes through the cornea and the lens it is focused in front of the retina, making distant images appear blurred. At Spindel Eye Associates we provide several refractive surgery solutions to correct all levels of nearsightedness.
Hyperopia (Farsightedness)
Farsighted individuals have shorter than normal eyes and have problems seeing up-close before the age of 40. The light of distant objects focuses behind the retina and these images are blurred. Eventually, their distance vision also starts to blur as they age. If you didn’t have up-close vision problems until you reached your 40’s, you may be experiencing presbyopia. Differentiating between the two can be confusion.
Astigmatism
Astigmatism is a common vision condition where the corneal surface is not evenly shaped, causing one to see ghosting or shadowing of images. With astigmatism, the cornea is not a perfect sphere, like a basketball, but is steeper in one direction and flatter in the other, like a football. Astigmatism can occur alone but is most often combined with nearsightedness or farsightedness.
Presbyopia
All people will experience difficulty reading, usually beginning in their 40s. There is a lens in the eye, which “accommodates” light so that we can see at near distances. With Presbyopia, light from a near object enters the eye, the cornea refracts the light and the lens changes shape to accommodate for the decreased focal length of a near object. This is exactly the same process that occurs when focusing your camera on a near object. Unfortunately this lens within the eye, as it ages, loses its ability to focus for us and we need reading glasses or bifocals. Presbyopia can be dealt with in a number of ways, so please contact our staff to better understand your options if this is something that you think you are experiencing.
