The direct answer for the question can Lasik cure astigmatism, is yes. Lasik not only cures the vision refractive errors near-sightedness, far-sightedness, but also astigmatism.
What is Astigmatism?
Sometimes astigmatism is misunderstood as stigmatism, and there is no relation or similarities in between them. Astigmatism is quite common problem of vision, just like near-sightedness and far-sightedness. Usually, it is caused by the eye’s cornea’s front surface that is in asymmetrical shape. Visually, cornea looks like an American football shape, instead of the baseball shape. When the eye gets affected with astigmatism, it does not look like ping-pong ball, but looks like back of spoon or egg. The condition is technically a problem associated with the focusing of light of the eye.
An astigmatic eye disturbs the clear vision, as the light fails to a single focus over the retina. Rather than focusing on the retina, there would be occurrence of multiple focus points either behind the retina or in front of it or both. The results are distorted or blurred vision at all distances, to certain degree.
Symptoms of Astigmatism
The most common symptoms are headaches and eye strain, especially after prolonged visual tasks or reading. Sometimes squinting symptoms also stands as a quite common one. Recent studies indicate that schoolchildren get affected with astigmatism.
Causes of Astigmatism
The definition of astigmatism is imprecise, through it is not developed genetically. This condition accompanies usually hyperopia or myopia. The combinations are three kinds.
- Hyperopic astigmatism is a condition, where either one meridian or both of them would be farsighted.
- Myopic astigmatism is a condition, either one meridian or both of them would get nearsighted.
- Mixed astigmatism is a condition, where one meridian gets hyperopic and another one gets hyperopic.
When an eye is affected with the astigmatism, mostly it does not exceed the magnitude of 3.0 D (dioptres). In such cases the problem can be corrected through one Lasik procedure. When astigmatism is in initial condition, it is not necessary to go for Lasik laser and can manage with the eye glasses or contact lens.
Lasik for Astigmatism
Lasik uses an ultra-precise laser, which can be programmed for reshaping the cornea to make the front eye surface to be more symmetrical. However, not all the astigmatism conditions can be cured with the Lasik surgery. For example, irregular astigmatism cannot be operated and corrected by Lasik. And for keratoconus condition, where the shape of cornea bulges to be a cone, resulting in astigmatism, Lasik is not the solution. So, for the candidacy for Lasik for astigmatism treatment should be decided by a qualified Lasik specialist.
When the astigmatism is more prominent, usually, one Lasik surgery does not suffice and so further Lasik enhancement surgeries would be needed as part of follow-up, sometimes, towards fine-turning the correction.