- Posted by Admin on November 14, 2009
Hi there,
Hope you've had a good week. I was wondering what eye conditions to tell you about and decided that I should start with why people need glasses before going on to the more complex eye health problems.
Emmetropia.
This is when you have no prescription, you don't need lenses of any strength to see better. You may have heard of twenty-twenty vision, well that's emmetropia.
In this country though we don't use 20/20, we would say 6/6. The top number refers to the effective distance of the test-chart, six metres, and the bottom number is the size of angle the letter creates at the back of your eye.
Myopia
This is short-sightedness. Its when you have problems seeing things in the distance, like road signs or even text on the television. Sometimes if you screw your eyes up you can see a bit better.
Hyperopia
This is long-sightedness. Here, unless you have a very strong prescription, you can see things in the distance easily but close-up is more difficult. Your eyes have to focus, or accommodate, if you are hyperopic, and this can lead to eyestrain.
Astigmatism
This is a slightly more complex visual problem. Here the front surface of your eye is shaped like a rugby ball rather than a football, which means that you that are different amounts of long- or short-sighted in each main direction. It is very common. People often have a small amount of astigmatism.
Presbyopia.
This is where the lens inside your eye becomes harder with age and make reading more difficult. It usually happens around the age of forty.
You should find something in the distance to look at. Put your hand over your left eye and check how well you see it with your right eye. Now do the same with the other eye.
Then try the same thing with something close to hand.
Both eyes should be pretty much the same. If not, why not book in a for an eye test and we'll check it out. Book an eyetest anyway, its never a waste of time.
Any questions please just ask.....
Bye for now,
Carla