Question for those with an astigmatism....

[mcvickj]

Back on April 1st I went to the doc because my right eye was bothering me. Found out I have astigmatism in my right eye and would need glasses to correct the problem. My right eye also happens to be my dominate eye. Fast forward to today and when I close my left eye and use just my right eye things still appear blurry. Of course we don't normally use one eye but for things like going to the target range and such it is still a pain.

Am I way off base or should things look just a sharp with my right eye as it does with my left? Do I need to press the issue with the eye doc? I called and spoke to someone at his desk (not the actual doc) about two weeks after receiving my eye glasses and they told me that it takes time getting used to the prescription. Two months seems like long enough.

I have a call in but they are closed for lunch. WTF? So I figured I would ask the great mind of ATOT.

 

[MotF Bane]

Go back to the eye doc, something isn't right with your Rx.

 

[Platypus]

I would go back if things up close to you are still blurry with the eye with an astigmatism. My left eye (with the astigmatism) is weak as hell so things far away are blurry regardless but they look ok up close.

The best test I found is a book.. black text on white background. If you can read a few pages with the eye and look away and things aren't blurry you are probably fine.

 

[Clemenza]

I developed an astigmatism around 30. Over the years it has gotten a little worse. I went to the Doc and they finally diagnosed me with Keratoconus. She told me that with people who develop astigmatism in their teens or later this is often the case. You may want to have them check you for it. In my case, glasses don't correct very well so I had to get gas permeable contacts to help press my cornea into a flatter shape.

 

[QuantumPion]

If you have astigmatism your vision will never be completely sharp. The problem with astigmatism-correcting lenses is that the lens shape only corrects within narrow angle, everything outside the center of the lens is distorted. You can see this effect by closing one eye and moving your head while looking at a fixed point (i.e. so that your eye is looking through the edge of your lens).

The correction is better than nothing but even with 20/20-correct vision I still can't read small text at a distance.

Here's a pic on the wiki page for astigmatism that illustrates the problem to those of you with normal eyes: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/42/Astigmatism_text_blur.png

 

[MotF Bane]

to those of you with normal eyes:

Screw you all.

 

[Six]

It's not going to be perfect. I've a pair for reading, and another for distance.

 

[rcpratt]

I developed an astigmatism around 30. Over the years it has gotten a little worse. I went to the Doc and they finally diagnosed me with Keratoconus. She told me that with people who develop astigmatism in their teens or later this is often the case. You may want to have them check you for it. In my case, glasses don't correct very well so I had to get gas permeable contacts to help press my cornea into a flatter shape.

They would have, or at least should have, noticed. As you said, kerataconus really just has the effect of very severe astigmatism, and it doesn't sound like he's at that point.

I had increasingly bad astigmatism through my teens (now keratoconus, yay), and contacts always worked better for me (and I preferred them). Might want to look into that.

 

[bobdole369]

Do I need to press the issue with the eye doc?

Yup. Or another doc altogether. I had mixed results with every different eye doc I've gone too. My current one is a master though, he radically altered my script from the last guy, and I'm seeing better than I ever have with soft contacts (well torics). I had been off and on using a combo of GP and glasses or just glasses for years.

It really is hard to get the script down. I've alwasy dreaded the whole "number 1, or number 2". Just about all docs seem to fly through this part, the most important part.

As above - you'll never have perfect vision with glasses through the edges, but it should approach 20/20.

The key though - can you function or are you actually squinting trying to see. With my last script (these godawful things called synergeyes, combo gp and soft skirt, which actually scratched my cornea a couple times and nearly ruined my wedding) - That was the case. I don't know the terms, but there are 3 parts to a script. A main diopter, an astig correct, and an axis. My old doc was undercorrecting by a full diopter and overcorrecting for astig. The result is that things looked "sharp" but I still couldn't actually see them. its hard to describe.

TL;DR -
make another appt and explain your concerns.

 

[mcvickj]

Thanks for all of the information so far. I can function fine. No squinting to try and read anything. It is hard to explain but it feels like is still some room for improvement.

During the appointment I never asked the doc about what I could expect after receiving the glasses. All he told me is the more I wear them the faster things would adjust.

I did go to the eye doctors about two weeks after the appointment to have them verify the lens prescription. They also said they added some shape to the frames to help where I was looking through the lens.

 

[mpo]

Two months is way too long to have issues with glasses.

I have astigmatism in my right eye. As stated above, the correction is always a compromise. My current lenses are quite rectangular, and the image is not very sharp if I look through the far left or right edge of the lens. If I move my head so I'm looking through the center of the lens, everything pops into focus.

That said, I have had some bad corrections over the years. Pair a) had the wrong pupil distance, b) had the axis correction off by 180 degrees, and c) had the axis correction off by 5 degrees.

I gave up on a) and c) after two weeks or so. It was obvious something was wrong with b) the moment I put the glasses on.

It usually takes me a day or two to get used to a new pair of glasses.

 

[rcpratt]

The key though - can you function or are you actually squinting trying to see. With my last script (these godawful things called synergeyes, combo gp and soft skirt, which actually scratched my cornea a couple times and nearly ruined my wedding) - That was the case. I don't know the terms, but there are 3 parts to a script. A main diopter, an astig correct, and an axis. My old doc was undercorrecting by a full diopter and overcorrecting for astig. The result is that things looked "sharp" but I still couldn't actually see them. its hard to describe.

Do you have keratoconus, too? I tried to be fitted with SynergEyes, but could never get get a wearable comfort level.