What does astigmatism look like?

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I had cataract surgery 4 days ago with a Clareon monofocal set to -1.25 D myopia for monovision. My reading vision is getting better day by day, but I am seeing a light shadow of text immediately to the right of each letter. It is offset by about the width of the vertical strokes that make up the text letter. I am hoping it is caused by the eye still healing and will go away, but I am thinking that this may be astigmatism. My surgeon was not enthusiastic about using a toric lens as he says my astigmatism is irregular. Since he did not seem confident, I did not push him to use one.

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So I am wondering if others have seen this in the case of having astigmatism? His estimate of residual astigmatism was -1.0 D. I will post a follow up comment with an image somewhat similar to what I am seeing. The source claims it is what you see with astigmatism. The effect as it currently is certainly makes it much more difficult to read small text as it kind of turns into a horizontal blur. With larger text it just shows up as a bit of a shadow to the right of the high contrast image.

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  • Posted

    I had my final checkup today on my left eye with my optometrist. The refraction came out slightly different than was expected. My surgeon targeted -1.25 D sphere, and expected -1.0 D cylinder. The measurements I got today were -1.0 D sphere and -0.75 D cylinder. So, basically slightly under in both measures.

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    So, not sure whether or not I should consider Lasik. If I just get the astigmatism corrected, I will likely lose some reading ability. I think if cylinder was reduced to say -0.25 D (likely the best they can do), I would have to get the sphere increased to about -1.4 D to maintain the reading distance. I guess that would be the questions I would have to ask of the Lasik person. What is reasonable to expect for minimizing astigmatism, and can they accurately give me the -1.4 D sphere?

    • Posted

      I'm sorry that the refraction turned out a little different than expected, but it wasn't much and luckily it can be corrected. I don't have enough knowledge to help you in your decision, but I have faith that you will make the right decision and reach your goal!

    • Posted

      The reality is that these results are well within the expect error and granularity of doing a refraction test. For example the actual sphere could be in the range of -1.0 to -1.25 D, but -1.0 gave the better vision. They have no choice between those two numbers. And less astigmatism is a better than expected result.

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      Now I just need to decide on whether or not is want to go through the Lasik process for a relatively small gain in vision. What I have now is certainly acceptable, but it is a nagging feeling that it could be better.....

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