Astygmatism and Contact Lenses

Astygmatism is a refraction error of the eyeball. It is characterized by an aspherical cornea in which one axis of corneal steepness is greater than the perpendicular axis.

People with Astigmatism have difficulty viewing fine details. However, the good news is that astigmatism can often be corrected by toric contact lenses.

Astigmatism occurs when the cornea (the lens of the eye) is not perfectly rounded. Because of this, the eye has different focal points in different planes. For example, the image might be clearly focused on the retina in the horizontal plane, but in the vertical plane the image might be focused in front of the retina.

Astigmatism is corrected by wearing toric contact lenses or eye glasses with cylindrical lenses.