astigmatism

This is when the eye is oval in shape.  Normally the surface of the cornea is perfectly round like a basketball.  Some people’s cornea is shaped more like a football … that is to say, the cornea is steep along one axis and shallow along the other. This is called astigmatism and is completely normal.  It is easy to fix astigmatism using glasses, as the “mirror image” of your eye’s football can be ground into your glasses and aligned to give good vision.  There are also toric contacts that can fix astigmatism though they are a little harder to fit as contacts spin on the surface of the eye.  Finally, there are now toric implants used in cataract surgery. These implants have the football shape ground in ahead of time. During surgery, we rotate this implant inside the eye until it perfectly balances out and eliminates your eye’s natural astigmatism.