Can astigmatism get worse?!
Question: Can astigmatism get worse?
Answers:
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Not according to my optometrist. Mine was diagnosed at 15 years of age. It was the same at 30, and again at 40. The optometrist said no need for glasses unless the strain gave me headaches - which it did when I was working in front of the computer all day and studying in front of the computer all night.
What you could be experiencing is the standard eyesight deterioration with age. Either that or your astigmatism has been misdiagnosed.
Astigmatism is the image misaligning with the retina. So your eye has to continually adjust the image to sit on the retina. Hence overuse causes eyestrain.
EDIT: Ahem, shortsightedness is ... shortsightedness, not an astigmatism. Shortsightedness and longsightedness change over time, an astigmatism does not. An astigmatism will cause problems with reading and computer work, not with driving. And an image that does not fall properly on the retina is blurry, unless the eye corrects for it - hence the eye strain.
And, three optometrists are wrong (not from the same practice and not even in the same cities), and you who are not an optometrist are right? Deluded!
yes it can get worse. How long ago were you prescribed the glasses? You need to go back every couple of years - although I'm the worst for that and wait too long really.
"Astigmatism is the image misaligning with the retina"
No it isn't, there are two main correction that are made to vision. The first is spherical correction which corrects for long/short sightedness which is a focusing issue, the other is an astigmatic correction which is a cylindrical correction because the eye is rugby-ball shaped. The astigmatic correction is a cylindrical lens which is rotated to fit the rugby-ball shape.
Nothing at all to do with misalignment, everything to do with focusing.
There is a third standard correction you can get which is prismatic, usually all zeros, which is a triangular prism on top of the cylindrical and astigmatic correction.
"The optometrist said no need for glasses unless the strain gave me headaches"
god forbid you should be too shortsighted to drive which doesn't give you headaches. You need a new one.