A 33-year-old member asked:
How bad is astigmatism?
1 doctor answer • 4 doctors weighed in

Dr. Richard Bensingeranswered
Ophthalmology 53 years experience
Usually not: Astigmatism is a physical curvature aspect of the cornea and lens of the eye which in effect makes the eye oval. The term astigmatism is from physics and is not usually a bad thing. The correction is a reverse oval in the eyeglasses or contacts. Most astigmatism is small and easily corrected. Sometimes it is large or irregular and that make perfect vision difficult. See your ophthalmologist.
5.9k viewsReviewed >2 years ago
Similar questions
A 44-year-old member asked:
I have very bad astigmatism. How can I correct it?
1 doctor answer • 2 doctors weighed in

Dr. Tim Conradanswered
Ophthalmology 35 years experience
Yes: The best choice is rigid contact lenses, but other possibilities are glasses, soft contact lenses and laser vision correction.
5.3k viewsReviewed >2 years ago
A 43-year-old member asked:
What is astigmatism?
4 doctor answers • 6 doctors weighed in

Dr. Richard Bensingeranswered
Ophthalmology 53 years experience
Oval eye shape: Refractive errors require either plus (farsighted) or minus (nearsighted) glasses + an extra amount if the eye is oval in shape (astigmatism). These are called refractive errors and can be corrected with glasses or contacts. The list of other eye problems is long and these are usually unrelated to astigmatism.
5.8k viewsReviewed >2 years ago
Last updated Feb 23, 2018
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