Astigmatism Contact Lenses Provided by a Phoenix, AZ Eye Specialist
If you have astigmatism, your eye has an abnormal shape. Due to the irregular curvature, the light can't reflect properly, hindering your ability to see clearly. At Eye Doctors of Arizona, serving Phoenix, AZ and the general vicinity, our optometry practitioner evaluates your eyes for astigmatism and provides you with corrective eyewear specifically for your condition.
About Astigmatism
The curvature of your eye could lead to blurred or distorted vision at all distances You can be born with this particular vision deficit. Some people also experience farsightedness or nearsightedness in addition to their astigmatism. Astigmatism can cause headaches, discomfort, and eyestrain. This eye condition may affect your night vision.
Diagnosing Astigmatism
Before we can provide you with astigmatism contacts, our eye specialist must perform a visual acuity test during your eye exam. This assesses you for a vision deficit and determines the severity. Then, our eye doctor has you look at different images, and you identify which ones look clearer. Our eye specialist detects astigmatism and measures the degree of it during your eye exam. Astigmatism can worsen, so once you receive a diagnosis of it, our eye doctor continuously monitors it. Although you may have heard certain habits can worsen your vision, you can't make your astigmatism worse by sitting too close to the television, nor does it worsen when you don't wear your contacts or glasses.
Astigmatism Contact Lenses
Not everybody requires contacts specifically for astigmatism. Standard contact lenses are enough for many people with mild astigmatism. You may, however, need specialized contacts for astigmatism if you have a severe enough case. Those individuals with a higher degree of astigmatism receive either toric lenses or other lenses for astigmatism. They aren't shaped like standard ones. In fact, a toric lens looks like a torus rather than a sphere. The shape allows the lenses to contour to your eye better. Contacts for astigmatism have different focusing powers at different angles as well.
Toric lenses may have areas of thick and thin spots to help them stay in place. Sometimes, the lens is thicker or heavier to ensure it stays in place. It's also possible the lenses will have a small area at the bottom where it's cut off.