Do You Need Glasses?

Do you think you might need glasses? When you can't see well, it makes life unnecessarily stressful.

But, you don't need to put up with headaches, eyestrain, difficulty focussing or maintaining concentration when you read.

If you have any of these symptoms, you need to have an eyetest for glasses. This will quickly tell you whether the problem is coming from your eyes or something else.

You may need glasses because of one or more of these benign eye conditions:

• myopia
(nearsightedness) - when you have difficulty seeing things in the distance
• hyperopia
(long sightedness) - when you have difficulty focussing on close objects for long periods
• presbyopia
- when you can't focus on close objects any more due to aging and glasses to help you read

and the need to squint at everything to make it clearer is called astigmatism.

So if you need glasses or contact lenses, the good news is that there is now a vast array of choices in lens designs to restore the comfort of natural vision.

Hyperopia or Long Sightedness

Hyperopia, also known as long sightedness, is a condition in which a person can see well at long distances, but not so good up close. Small amounts of this condition may not be noticed at all. The larger the degree, the greater the difficulty concentrating on near tasks. If you have quite a large degree, you may also have blurry distance vision.

This is because in the relaxed eye of a hyperopic person, the image you see is actually focused behind the retina. Small amounts can be compensated for by focusing (accommodating) the eyes.

Larger amounts become uncomfortable, leading to eyestrain and headaches, even if the print looks clear. The issue for these people is stamina. The longer they have to focus, the more difficult it becomes and you need glasses to make it comfortable.

To feel this effect for yourself: try to read a book while holding it only 10cm from your face!

What can you do about it?

Your Optometrist has many things to consider when making a decision about treating long sightedness. Symptoms are very important. In general, people who are only slightly long sighted do not have problems. Where they do get symptoms, they may benefit from eye exercises or need glasses, mainly for high demand tasks such as reading and using computers for long hours.

If you are already getting eyestrain and headaches when concentrating on close work like reading, computer or needlework then you will benefit from glasses or contact lenses to take the strain off your eyes.

Astigmatism

Astigmatism causes unequal blur. Some directions in an image are more out of focus than others. This is in contrast to short and long-sightednesswhere all directions are equally blurry. Sometimes the image may appear distorted, or even doubled. Text is particularly difficulty to read because there are many angles in our writing. Eg if all the vertical lines in text are blurry, it is quite difficult to decipher.

Most astigmatism is caused by the shape of the front surface of the eye (the cornea). One common way of describing it is to imagine that your eye is shaped like a football (AFL, Rugby or American football) rather than an even shape all over like a Basketball.

The eye being an uneven shape causes it to focus light unequally resulting in blur. This condition is particularly prone to giving eyestrain and headaches. The headaches are commonly (though not always) at the temples.

This condition is treated with glasses or contact lenses.

Binocular Co-ordination

The second class of problems that can result in fuzzy vision relates to how well your eyes work as a team. For consistently clear, single and comfortable vision, your visual system needs to be both well co-ordinated and efficient.

When things get out of synch, you can experience blurry vision, double vision, eyestrain or headaches; even if you see well on an eyechart. Both eyes have to work together well for prolonged visual comfort. Tasks like using a computer all day long are much more complicated than reading an eyechart!

The best solution for these kind of problems is eye exercises, also known as vision therapy. Depending on your personal needs, this may be done in conjunction with glasses or contact lenses.

Eye Disease

If glasses don't improve your vision, you may have an eye disease that makes your vision seem poor. If your Optometrist has not been able to get you to see 20/20 with glasses or you have other symptoms, they will assume there is eye disease until proven otherwise.

Some eye diseases are very subtle in their early stages. Please be patient if your Optometrist is unsure whether you have a disease. This means it is very early and hard to detect. If you've got something, this is when you want it found.

Common eye diseases that can cause blurred vision include:

• Cataract
• Macular Degeneration
• Glaucoma
• Diabetic Eye Disease

If I am going to wear glasses now, what kind of designer glasses frames do I need?

And what do I need to know about lenses?

I don't live in Sydney, can you direct me to another Eye Care Practitioner?