nearsightedness

When you're nearsighted, images in the distance seem blurry. You may find that images become clearer when you squint to see them. For example, if you're nearsighted and in school, you'll be able to read a book that you're holding and easily see the students sitting near you, but words written on the chalkboard and your teacher will look blurry.

Nearsightedness, also called myopia, occurs when the light rays entering the eye bend too much, coming to a point of focus before they reach the retina. With nearsightedness, your eyes may be longer than normal or the cornea may be too curved. As a result, the images you see don't focus on the retina as they should.

When you are nearsighted, the images you see don't focus on the back of the eye as they should. Instead, they focus in front of the retina, rather than on it.

Nearsightedness is the most common eye problem, which affects approximately 25% of the population. It normally develops in childhood; in fact, many parents are first alerted to the problem when a child has trouble reading the blackboard at school. Nearsightedness tends to get worse during the teenage years, and then stabilize during early adulthood.

Some experts believe that nearsightedness is hereditary. It can occur with or without astigmatism.

When an eye doctor examines your eyes, he or she has a quantitative way of measuring your vision. These numbers describe your vision problems, their severity, and your prescription for vision correction. The typical prescription notation for nearsightedness has a minus sign before the first number.

Treating Nearsightedness

The treatment for nearsightedness depends on several factors, such as your:

• Age
• Activities
• Occupation

Like farsightedness and astigmatism, doctors can treat nearsightedness with certain vision correction procedures, including Customized LASIK eye surgery, as well as eyeglasses and contact lenses.

Take this simple test to learn more about whether or not you're a good candidate for Customized LASIK surgery.