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Comment by f430 | Hacker News Reader

now if only they had something for astigmatism. There's surprising lack of progress

Ugh. I had fairly stable myopia and was content. Recently developed astigmatism in my strong eye and so my overall vision is substantially worse.

Anyone know what can cause sudden onset of astigmatism in adulthood? It appeared a couple years ago and seems stable. Not sure over what period it appeared, probably in 3-12 months.

I always thought it was genetics or perhaps excessive screen time is my next guess but I've been told its not possible.

Screen time leads to less blinking and drier eyes

Perhaps that causes astigmatism? Perhaps the cornea needs blinking to stay stable?

Me too. It is really bad. Myopia is no issue when I work at the computer, since I can move closer, but with astigmatism I cannot read at all without glasses. It has recently increased to 3.5 diopter cylinder according to the measurement device. At those values it is even difficult to buy glasses.

>Anyone know what can cause sudden onset of astigmatism in adulthood? It appeared a couple years ago and seems stable. Not sure over what period it appeared, probably in 3-12 months.

If it was unstable, it could be keratokonus

There's something called SMILE if you're interested in surgery. I recently had it done.

can you tell me a bit more about costs, any side effects, and whether you are satisifed?

I paid $4,200 for it in San Diego, California. Maybe it can be cheaper elsewhere.

Side effects = NOTHING. Seriously. The operation is legitimately nothing, super duper quick. You walk into a room and in less than fifteen minutes you walk out with perfect vision. It's unbelievable.

Satisfied? Very much. I now have perfect vision. I still forget sometimes. Like I'll take off my shirt at the end of the night and will be pulling it away as if I had glasses on.

Or I'll even go to take off my glasses when I get in bed and realize I don't have glasses.

I will say...everyone throughout life treated me like a "very smart person"(tm) but now that is less so and I'm starting to think the glasses had something to do with it :D

That's a tough nut to crack as everyones axis to the astigmatism is custom, nevermind the combination of powers to compensate for the actual focal issues.

And all of those details shift over time, too.

I wonder if there is a way to "read" how elongated your eyeball is, detect imperfections on the surface level and create a smart glass that adjusts what you see based on these "customizations".

Imagine training the brain to see properly, I doubt it will change in adults however.

Even wearing light sunglasses helps tremendously but because of the socially frowned upon nature of wearing shades indoors and the long term effect of opening up the cornea constantly isn't good, it is a bandaid problem.

I look good too in shades and I can't use astigmatism as an excuse similar to how using one's Asperger syndrome diagnosis as a license to be insensitive cannot expect positive societal feedback.

Enchroma has a product to correct for varities of color blindness, but they overall effect is still sunglasses to those looking at you.

Like anyone with a visible disability it takes education and time to normalize things, triple-so for those with disabilities that are not immediately presenting.

There are such measurement devices: wavefront aberrometers

There are also corresponding glasses, but no smart glasses

astigmatism is a nasty beast. Looking back at my prescriptions my astigmatism can jump all over the place, even within 4 months period. I had a holiday in Japan once, and they make you a pair of glasses within an hour, so I got some as a backup despite I've only just got a new pair recently and the astigmatism axis was a complete flip...

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