Astigmatism:Astigmatism might be the most misunderstood vision problem. Even the name is challenging to many people, who incorrectly call it "stigmatism."

Like nearsightedness and farsightedness, astigmatism is a refractive error, meaning it is not an eye health problem; it simply is a problem with how the eye focuses light.

In an eye with astigmatism, light fails to come to a single focus on the retina to produce clear vision. Instead, multiple focus points occur, either in front of or behind the retina (or both).

Astigmatism Symptoms

Astigmatism usually causes vision to be blurred or distorted to some degree at all distances.

Symptoms of uncorrected astigmatism are eye strain and headaches, especially after reading or other prolonged visual tasks.

Squinting also is a very common symptom of uncorrected astigmatism.

What Causes Astigmatism?

Astigmatism usually is caused by an irregularly shaped cornea. Instead of the cornea having a symmetrically round shape (like a baseball), it is shaped more like a football, with one meridian being significantly more curved than the meridian perpendicular to it.

(To understand what meridians are, think of the front of the eye like the face of a clock. A line connecting the 12 and 6 is one meridian; a line connecting the 3 and 9 is another.)

The steepest and flattest meridians of an eye with astigmatism are called the principal meridians.

In some cases, astigmatism is caused by the shape of the lens inside the eye. This type of astigmatism is called lenticular astigmatism, to differentiate it from the more common corneal astigmatism.

Types of Astigmatism

There are several types of astigmatism:

• Myopic astigmatism. One or both principal meridians of the eye are nearsighted. (If both meridians are nearsighted, they are myopic in differing degree.)
• Hyperopic astigmatism. One or both principal meridians are farsighted. (If both are farsighted, they are hyperopic in differing degree.)
• Mixed astigmatism. One prinicipal meridian is nearsighted, and the other is farsighted.

Astigmatism also is classified as regular or irregular. In regular astigmatism, the principal meridians are 90 degrees apart (perpendicular to each other). In irregular astigmatism, the principal meridians are not perpendicular. Most astigmatism is regular corneal astigmatism, which gives the eye a football shape.

Irregular astigmatism can result from an eye injury that has caused scarring on the cornea, from certain types of eye surgery or from keratoconus, a disease that causes a gradual thinning of the cornea.

How Common is Astigmatism?

Astigmatism often occurs early in life, so it is important to schedule an eye exam for your child to avoid vision problems in school from uncorrected astigmatism.

In a recent study of 2,523 American children ages 5 to 17 years, more than 28 percent had astigmatism of 1.0 diopter(D) or greater.

Also, there were significant differences in astigmatism prevalence based on ethnicity. Asian and Hispanic children had the highest prevalences (33.6 and 36.9 percent, respectively), followed by whites (26.4 percent) and African-Americans (20.0 percent).*

In another large study of more than 11,000 eyeglass wearers conducted recently in the UK, 47.4 percent of wearers had astigmatism of 0.75 D or greater in at least one eye, and 24.1 percent had this amount of astigmatism in both eyes. The prevalence of myopic astigmatism (31.7 percent) was approximately double that of hyperopic astigmatism (15.7 percent).**

Astigmatism Test

Astigmatism is detected during a routine eye exam with the same instruments and techniques used for the detection of nearsightedness and farsightedness. Your eye doctorcan estimate your amount of astigmatism by shining a light into your eye while manually introducing a series of lenses between the light and your eye. This astigmatism test is called retinoscopy.

Though many eye doctors continue to perform retinoscopy, this manual procedure has been replaced or supplemented in many eye care practices with automated instruments that provide a faster preliminary test for astigmatism and other refractive errors.

Whether retinoscopy or an automated refraction is performed as a preliminary astigmatism test, your optometrist or ophthalmologist will refine the preliminary finding with a manual refraction prior to issuing your eyeglasses prescription.

Astigmatism Correction

Astigmatism, like nearsightedness and farsightedness, usually can be corrected witheyeglasses, contact lenses or refractive surgery.

The axis of astigmatism in eyeglass and contact lens prescriptions describes the location of the flatter principal meridian of the eye using the above 180-degree rotary scale.

In addition to the spherical lens power used to correct nearsightedness or farsightedness, astigmatism requires an additional "cylinder" lens power to correct the difference between the powers of the two principal meridians of the eye.

So an eyeglasses prescription for the correction of myopic astigmatism, for example, could look like this: -2.50 -1.00 x 90.

• The first number (-2.50) is the sphere power (in diopters) for the correction of myopia in the flatter (less nearsighted) principal meridian of the eye.
• The second number (-1.00) is the cylinder power for the additional myopia correction in the more curved principal meridian. (-2.50 + -1.00 = -3.50 D)
• The third number (90) is called the axis of astigmatism. This is the location (in degrees) of the flatter principal meridian, on a 180-degree rotary scale (in which 90 degrees designates the vertical meridian of the eye, and 180 degrees designates the horizontal meridian).

If you wear soft toric contact lenses for astigmatism correction, your contact lens prescription will likewise include a sphere power, cylinder power and axis designation.

Gas permeable contact lenses also correct astigmatism. Because these lenses are rigid and optically replace the cornea as the refracting surface of the eye, a cylinder power and axis may or may not be needed, depending on the type and severity of astigmatism correction required.

Refractive surgery such as LASIK also can correct most types of astigmatism. Discuss with your eye doctor which procedure is best to correct your astigmatism