Astigmatism is a very common eye problem that can be easily fixed with glasses, contacts, or, in some cases, surgery.

Astigmatism happens when your eye isn’t a perfect circle. Because our bodies aren’t perfect, almost everyone has astigmatism to some degree, but not everyone has it bad enough to blur their vision. Your eye has a natural sphere shape. When light comes into your eye, it should bend smoothly and make a clear picture on the back of your eye. With astigmatism, a person’s eye is more like the shape of a football, and light coming into the eye bends more in one way than the other. This means that at any given time, only part of the picture will be in focus. At any distance, things can look fuzzy and wavy. Astigmatism can make it hard to see, but glasses, contact lenses, and sometimes even surgery to fix the vision can help.

People who don’t know they have astigmatism often have blurry vision, which can make them tired and cause eye pain. Even though these symptoms might not always be caused by astigmatism, you should get an eye test if you have one or more of them.

With a full eye exam, our eye doctor can tell if we have astigmatism. Astigmatism can happen along with other vision problems, like being nearsighted or farsighted. Since astigmatism gets worse over time, you should see an eye doctor whenever your vision changes.