What Is Long Sightedness?

Long sightedness, also called farsightedness and hyperopia, is a vision problem in which an individual can see clearly objects a long distance away, but those up close are blurry. Long sightedness is usually present at birth and has a habit of running in families. It can be corrected with eyeglasses, contact lenses or surgery.

Function

• The eye uses the cornea and the lens to focus on objects. The cornea is the clear front surface of the eye, while the lens is a clear part of the eye within the eye that has the ability to change shape in order to help focus on something. In a normal eye, both the lens and cornea have a perfectly smooth curvature and are able to bend any incoming light to make a focused image on the back of the eye, called the retina. But if your eye is shorter than normal, or the cornea lacks enough curvature, the image is not focused and long sightedness is the result. The image is focused behind the retina and objects close up appear blurry.

Effects

• The symptoms that come with long sightedness include objects far away being clear while those close up looking blurry. You will need to squint to be able to see things close clearly and the eyestrain can make your eyes burn, ache and sometimes cause headaches. Reading, writing and other similar tasks where your vision is drawn to close objects will cause these symptoms.

Time Frame

• Eye examinations can diagnose long sightedness. With children, these exams can start as young as birth to 3 months old, with follow-up exams at 6 months to a year and then when the child turns 3 and 5. Adults will be able to verbalize a problem with long sightedness much more easily than toddlers and children. They should still have periodic eye exams, especially as they approach middle age.

Warning

• If long sightedness is not corrected, it can lead to vision ailments such as crossed eyes. Children are at risk from this especially. A person's quality of life is at stake in severe cases, keeping them from performing tasks that others take for granted. The eyestrain can lead to frequent headaches in some individuals, and those that suffer from long sightedness put others at risk when they drive or operate heavy machinery.

Prevention/Solution

• Fortunately, almost all long sightedness can be corrected. Many young people with long sightedness have lenses flexible enough to still be able to focus on close up objects, but this ability is lost as they grow older. Corrective lenses such as eyeglasses or contacts work by helping to focus the image your eye takes in on the retina. In some cases, surgery can be used to fix this condition by reshaping the cornea's curve. Laser-assisted in-situ keratomileusis, commonly called LASIK surgery, utilizes a technique that reshapes the surface of the cornea.