I recently went to the eye doc and she said i had astigmatism. here are my results form he testing she did:
Dist. -2.00 +1.00 x90
-1.25 +0.75 x85
First off, what does this mean, and secondly, can i fix it?
I am going into the military, and want my eyes to be as healthy as possible before i go. Are there any good natural healing type things i could do? I would liek to avoid surgery if possible.
Thanks!
Shawn McDaniel

HI DMEGDGOODS well -2 diopters means that you need a lasik or something because i dont know but in my case with astigmatism and miophy my vision is really poor, and that increase you have to operate your eyes and would be fine, sorry but how is your vision without glasses

Astigmatism is not a disease, just a prescription reading. Your options for vision correction are glasses, contacts or laser surgery. These are to put your eyes in better, sharper focus. Your prescription is fairly low, especially the left eye, for laser surgery. If you ever have surgery done, make sure your vision and prescription are stable and not changing.

Your astigmatism affects your night vision more so than your day vision. When your eyes are exposed to bright lights, your pupils decrease in size, creating a pin hole effect. This means more light is directed to the back of the eye more accurately. In low light, the pupils are increased in size, and the light rays are more indirect to the back of the eye, creating a fuzzier image.

You need to wear glasses or contacts at all times to be comfortable with your vision. Corrective eye surgery can be done, but usually requires visual stability for at least 2 years. Also, not 100% accurate on correcting your astigmatism, despite what some doctors may say.

I've lived with glasses most of my life, and like them. I also wear contacts on occasion. My prescription is : OD(right eye) -3.50 -2.25 x165, and OS(left) -3.25 -2.50 x120. This is much stronger than yours.

When you purchase glasses, make sure you have someone you trust fashion judgement with help you choose, else you may not like them, and not wear them as much. Also, choose a durable pair, not those $99.00 cheap pairs. Your going into the military, and you need these to last. Get contacts if you can, and wear them occassionally. Listen to your doctors recommendations on the wear of contacts. He knows your eyes better than anyone else.

Good luck.

Stability for 2 years before correcting astigmatism? That's quite a long time.

Shawn: You asked a couple questions you didn't get answered. You can research what astigmatism is on the net. Briefly, it's an uneven shaping of the normally smooth, rounded cornea that covers the front of the eye. Astigmatism is very common. The first number in your prescription -2.00 and -1.25 is the amount of nearsightedness (myopia) you have in each eye. It's unrelated to astigmatism. The second number, +1.00 and +.75 is the amount of astigmatism, or "pointiness" of the cornea. Your astigmatism is slight. As Dude said, probably too low for surgery. The third number is the degree, out of 360, where the astigmatism falls in the circle of the cornea. It's just the location.

It can't hurt to take vitamins and eat properly, but I don't think there is much you can do to correct myopia or astigmatism naturally.

I don't know what visual acuity you need for the armed forces, but your myopia and astigmatism are not great. Dude also said your eyes should be stable before any kind of laser surgery. From what I've read, I think this means at least mid-20's.

Oh, yeah, I forgot. A negative number in a prescription indicates myopia, a positive number-farsightedness. Your first reading is negative, but the astigmatisms are positive, meaning (I think--somebody can correct me if I'm wrong) that the astigmatisms have the effect of farsightedness (meaning they would cause more problems up close). I checked my own prescription to make sure of this and both my astigamtism readings are negative. Not sure what it all means.

Keelac,
You explained that prescription so well!
I'm embarrased that after wearing glasses for 43 years, I still don't get it.
The first 41 years I was about -6, so that's all I needed to know.
Now I'm post cataract surgery, and have astigmatism.
My latest prescription is:
OD +0.25 -0.50 x 150
OS plano -0.25 x 095
So, I now understand that the last numbers are just position of the astigmatism.
Is plano good?
I feel like such a crybaby, but I really see better with glasses, except at about 4 - 5 ft away, where none of my glasses (computer, reading, driving) works.
I'm wondering if it would be worth the expense of getting progressives.
I wore them for 10 years when I was greatly nearsighted, but this is different.
Plus there's a new progressive lens called the Physio by Varilux. I can't find out how wide the midrange area is.


P.S. Shawn, sorry for butting in. I hope any answers to my questions will be useful to you too.

Yes, that's a very good description of astigmatism. I have about one diopter but I can't even pretend to understand the linline search descriptions.

PLANO, oh. I learned something.

Hello SP. Plano is very good--it's zero. And all your other numbers are very slight.
Your degree of astigmatism is negative, as is mine. I mentioned this to Shawn because I don't know if having a nearsighted eye (negative) with a positive degree of astigmatism makes things more complicated, or not.