What does my eye prescription mean. Please help I'm worried!?!
Question: What does my eye prescription mean. Please help I'm worried!?
I'm 24 years old and had my yearly eye examination yesterday. My results were as follows....
Right eye -
SPH = +1.00
CYL = -2.00
AXIS = 160.0
Left eye -
SPH = + 1.75
CYL = -4.50
AXIS = 21.0
I would really appreciate a brief explanation of what this means in plain english. Iwould also like to know if this means my eyes are very bad, or normal. Should my eyes be this bad at my age?
My last question is about driving. Am I within the safe driving limits? How much worse do my eyes have to get before my driving licence is taken away from me.
Any answers would be gratefully received as I am really worried.
Many thanks
Answers:
Astigmatism is pretty much your only problem. You have some in your right eye and quite a bit in your left eye. Your cornea is steeper up and down than it is side to side. This creates a blur at all distances without your glasses. Your amount of astigmatism has likely been pretty stable since you started wearing glasses. Unless you have something unusual going on, you wont likely get worse. You should probably wear your glasses when you drive. We really can't tell from the information you have provided if you are safe to drive. Safety in driving depends on how well you see when you are wearing glasses, not how strong your glasses are.
optometrist
You really need to ask the optometrist ( or similar ) that performed your eye exam - he or she will be able to give you the right info :]
Sph or sphere refers to the strength of your prescription. Some prescriptions use the word power in place of sphere.
Cyl or cylindrical refers to the strength of your astigmatism
AXIS refers to the orientation of your astigmatism in degrees.
astigmatism simply means that where a normal eyeball is a sphere yours are shaped like a football. no worries though, tons of people, me included have this disorder and it is nothing to be concerned about! I even wear contact lenses and my astigmatism is pretty bad. But I am not a candidate for lasik though!
edit - Don't worry about driving at all!! You are in legal limits!!
You are not going to go blind or anything. Your eye issue is very common!! Don't worry about it, you are fine!!