Hyperopia Causes Daily Problems You Didn’t Know

There’s are reason why your eyes are round, and it has something to do with your vision. In fact, the shape of your eyes determine the capabilities of your vision.

You get your vision from the light that your eyes refract and focus on to create a picture of your environment.

Moreover, the shape and size of your eye affects its ability to process the light around you. But if your eyes don’t have the right side, it can lead to vision problems like myopia or nearsightedness.

Likewise, a short eye can be a leading culprit to a number of hyperopia causes.

Hyperopia, which is commonly known as farsightedness, occurs when your eye is a little shorter than it should be.

Which means that it can’t redirect or focus on light properly to create a clear vision for things that are close to you.

Additionally, farsightedness can also occur when your cornea is flatter than normal, which causes your eye to focus the light rays beyond the retina.

As a result, hyperopia causes people to see distant objects clearly, while objects that are near the eyes appear hazy.

What Causes Hyperopia or Farsightedness?

Similar to nearsightedness, hyperopia is generally known to be hereditary. The results of an analysis by NCBI shows that the probability of hyperopia to be hereditary is around 75 percent.

Which means that genetic factors may play a crucial role in hyperopia causes. Uniquely, children who have hyperopia can still view near objects clearly.

This is because their eyes are capable squinting and adjusting to compensate for their farsightedness.

However, as they get older, their eyes become less capable at squinting which makes looking at near objects much more difficult.

Hyperopia Causes Symptoms

Similar to other vision impairments and problems, hyperopia has a couple of symptoms that you can look out for.

In fact, as the name suggests, hyperopia or farsightedness means that your vision is only good for looking at objects from afar.

These symptoms will help you determine if you have hyperopia or farsightedness. Hyperopia causes the following symptoms.

Bad Close-Distance Vision

As mentioned above, you can clearly see objects that are far away when you have hyperopia.

However, objects that are close to you can seem blurry. Unlike myopia, hyperopia causes your eyes to lose focus on things that are close to your line of sight.

So, if you have an easier time looking at distant objects opposed to objects that are near, then there is a big chance that you are farsighted.

Blurry Vision

Do you notice your vision getting blurry? Or maybe your starting to squint more often when you read? If you do, then you might be farsighted because hyperopia causes blurry vision.

Depending on the degree of your hyperopia, you’ll generally see things within your immediate surroundings to be blurry. 

This is especially troublesome when you spend most of your time in closed environments like a cubicle in the office, or a small room.

Although your vision will be more comfortable in large open spaces where your eyes have a lot of distant objects to look at.

Eye Strain

When you have hyperopia, you might find your eyes to fatigue very often. Especially when you spend lots of time looking at very close objects like reading a book or staring at the screen of your digital devices. 

Read this article to avoid eyestrain: THESE THINGS CAN HELP YOU PREVENT EYE STRAIN.

Hyperopia causes eye strain because of your eye’s inability to focus on near objects. As a result, your eyes tend to strain themselves when they constantly try to adjust to certain close-quarter activities.

Additionally, you may also feel aching or burning sensations around your eyes.

Headaches

Aside from eye strains, farsightedness also brings unwanted headaches. The headaches usually occur after you do activities like reading a book, writing down notes, doing illustration work, or staring at digital screens.

The headaches are generally a result of the fatigue and discomfort that comes with your eye strain.

So if you think you are farsighted, you should remember to rest your eyes occasionally because hyperopia causes really bad headaches.

Should you see a doctor?

Now that you know the symptoms of hyperopia, what should you do if you feel like you are farsighted?

The first step is to get an appointment with a trusted eye doctor. If your vision is really affecting your ability to enjoy or properly perform your daily tasks. 

An eye doctor can assess the level of your farsightedness and give you options on how to correct your vision.

So it’s very important to get your eyes checked by a trusted professional. Additionally, you can also have your eyes checked regularly to find out the status and health of your vision.

Checkup Frequency for Adults

If you wear corrective lenses and are at risk for certain eye problems, you can practice getting a dilated eye examination at least once within one to two years. This is particularly important for adults with the age of 40 and above.

However, if you don’t use corrective lenses, and have no eye problems, you can follow these guidelines to know when to get an eye examination:

• You can begin your eye examination at the age of 40.
• If you are between the ages of 40 and 54 years, you can get an eye exam every two to four years.
• For people between the ages of 55 and 64 years old, an eye exam every one to three years is advised.
• When you are at the age of 65 years old, you should get an eye exam every one to two years.

If you suffer from any condition that affects your eyes or vision, such as diabetes, you should consider getting regular checkups with your doctor.

If you wear corrective lenses and have frequently visited an eye doctor, you can simply consult your doctor for the ideal frequency of your checkups.

Read this article and find out why eye exams are crucial: A QUICK GUIDE TO EYE EXAMS AND ITS IMPORTANCE.

Additionally, getting your eyes checked at least once a year can help prevent possible problems, even when you have perfect vision.

Remember, your eye health isn’t always going to be at its peak. Which means that eye problems may still occur to people who have never experienced any problems with their vision.

So if you’re one of the lucky few, don’t hesitate to get your eyes checked once in a while. In fact, you should schedule an eye checkup if you ever feel like something is not right with your vision.

For example, hyperopia causes blurry vision and headaches, which are little things that you can look out for. 

Checkup Frequency for Children

Children and adults can have different needs when it comes to eye care. So it’s only natural to have different eye checkup intervals.

To avoid eye diseases, children should get an eye exam from accredited eye professionals within the following age intervals.

• Children at the age of 6 months can have their initial eye exam.
• An eye exam is also recommended for children at the age of 3 years old.
• It is also god for a child to get an examination right before first grade and within the following 2 years.

How do you treat hyperopia?

There are many ways to treat hyperopia or farsightedness. However, the method of care will vary depending on your doctor’s diagnosis.

That’s why eye examinations are very important in determining the quality of your vision and the care that you need.

Diagnosis of Farsightedness

Since hyperopia causes your close-quarter vision to diminish, it is considered a refractive error. A refraction assessment from your basic eye examination can help determine the level of your farsightedness.

A refraction assessment can also detect eye problems like myopia (nearsightedness), astigmatism, or presbyopia.

During this examination, your eye doctor uses equipment like different lenses to assess your visual capabilities.

After the diagnosis, your doctor will talk to you about what you need for your hyperopia.

Getting Prescription Lenses

Getting yourself a pair of prescription lenses would be the most common method of treating hyperopia.

Normally, if you have a high degree of farsightedness and your hyperopia causes your near vision to greatly diminish, you’ll need prescription lenses.

Additionally, the need for prescription lenses will only increase as you get older and your eye health gradually decreases.

Eyeglasses

Since hyperopia causes near vision problems, doctors will generally advise you to get prescription eyeglasses.

Eyeglasses are a simple and straightforward solution to fix your vision problems.

Additionally, treating your hyperopia with eyeglasses is way safer than getting refractive surgery.

However, surgery is not as bad as it seems and we’ll get to that later on.

Contact Lenses

Unlike eyeglasses that you wear on your face, you wear your prescription contact lenses directly on your eyes.

Some people would prefer contact lenses over eyeglasses because it doesn’t get in the way of how they look.

In fact, regular eyeglasses tend to fall off your face when you do exercise and other similar activities.

Never get contacts without a prescription: The Risks of Buying Contact Lenses Without a Prescription.

There are also different types of contact lenses that offer specific features such as soft lenses, rigid lenses, gas permeable lenses, and many more.

If you plan on getting contact lenses for your hyperopia, just take note that putting them on and off may be a little challenging at first.

However, you’ll get used to wearing them later on.

Refractive Surgery

Refractive surgery is a surgical procedure that is commonly used to treat myopia (nearsightedness).

However, refractive surgery can also treat less severe cases of hyperopia (farsightedness).

A refractive surgery treats your farsightedness by altering the shape of your cornea’s curvatur.

Additionally, there are different types of refractive surgery that you can get.

LASIK Surgery

LASIK or laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis is a very common type of refractive surgery.

A study by the Department of Ophthalmology of the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, around 18 million LASIK treatment has been performed as of the year 2008.

This type of surgery is popular because it corrects nearsightedness, hyperopia farsightedness, and astigmatism.

With LASIK, your surgeon slices a flap of corneal tissue called epithelium to expose the stroma tissues in your eye.

Next, an excimer laser reshapes the stroma, and then seals the opening by closing the flap of cornea back into place.

PRK Surgery

Photorefractive keratectomy or PRK is another type of refractive surgery. Similar to LASIK, PRK corrects vision by using a laser to modify the shape of the cornea.

When the cornea is correctly reshaped, your eye can correctly focus light to your retina for better vision.

However, unlike LASIK, surgeons who perform PRK procedures remove the epithelium or the outer layer of your cornea, and then reshape your stroma tissue with a laser.

After the reshaping process, your eyes naturally repair itself and grows its epithelium over the layer that was previously removed.

Read this article for more details about refractive surgery: HOW DIFFERENT TYPES OF REFRACTIVE SURGERY CORRECTS VISION.

LASEK Surgery

Laser epithelial keratomileusis or LASEK is a refractive surgery that is similar to both LASIK and PRK. A LASEK procedure also uses an excimer laser to alter the shape of your cornea.

However, with LASEK, surgeons don’t completely remove the layer of epithelium that they slice open.

In fact, they leave out thinner flap of tissue which they use to cover the opening after the laser reshapes the stroma.

After putting the layer of epithelium back into place, surgeons place a bandage contact lens over your eye.

Conclusion

Although farsightedness may not be a life-threatening problem, hyperopia causes daily issues that can make your day miserable.

From headaches to eye strain, hyperopia causes problems that can affect the quality of your life.

However, medical advancements are making refractive errors like myopia or hyperopia very easy to treat. You simply get a pair of corrective eyeglasses or contact lenses.

In fact, you even have the option of getting surgery to fix your eyes. However, you should only do so after you get your eyes checked by a legitimate eye doctor.

Your eyes play a huge role in the quality of your life, so make sure that you get them checked and fixed by professionals

References:

Study of gene-environment effects on development of hyperopia: a study of 191 adult twin pairs from the Finnish Twin Cohort Study.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2392890

Basic Knowledge of Refractive Surgery: Correction of Refractive Errors Using Modern Surgical Procedures

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2696744

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