I’m getting old (51), which is better than the alternative. But my eyesight is starting to turn to shit. So I’m going to make an appointment with an ophthalmologist for a check-up. I’ve got astigmatism and a bit of near-sightedness. Could I be helped by contacts, which I’ve never used. I currently wear glasses for just about everything.
I’ve got myopia and astigmatism, and my contacts correct everything back to 20/20. So it’s definitely possible, though, of course, YMMV.
I just got contacts for the first time in a long time at the age of 51. They fix my nearsightedness and astigmatism but make the aging problems I have with adjustments for reading worse. My contact specialist said that is normal. They are hard, scleral contacts if that makes a difference. I have resorted to contacts and progressive bifocals for doing anything that needs close vision.
On the plus side I look way older without glasses and I can now wear more fashionable glasses than I could with my prescription. Without progressive bifocals I needed two different pairs of reading glasses, one for reading and one for computer use.
You definitely can get contact lenses that correct for astigmatism, and they do it better than glasses do. They cost more, though.
I use rigid gas permeable contact lenses and they correct astigmatism beautifully. In fact, much better than my eyeglasses.
I currently use disposables for my astigmatism - depending on how severe your eyesight is you may have many options.
I’m short-sighted with an astigmatic left eye and silicone contact lenses - which aren’t supposed to dry out so quickly - work well for me and I use them every day. With my old, “normal” lenses, the one in my left eye kept moving moving out of position, which means blurry or doublish-vision if your eyeball has delusions of rugby. The silicone lenses seem to stay in place better, preventing this problem.
Before I got my eyes zapped, I used toric soft contacts to correct both nearsightedness and astigmatism. They worked fine, but–as SciFiSam said, they’re more expensive. On the plus side, one set that I used for quite a while actually gave me better than 20/20 vision, which was fun. (They gave me a bonus to Detect Traps, and I got to use it. :D)
I have no idea how this works, but my mother has bi-focal contacts. She swears by them.
I wear single-vision contacts for extreme nearsightedness and they’re also toric for my astigmatism. The presbyopia is creeping up on me so when wearing my contacts I have to wear reading glasses if I want to read anything. When wearing my glasses, I just take them off to read (haven’t tried bifocals yet). I am getting tired of the reading glasses + contacts so am thinking about trying one contact lens for near and one for distance. I’ve heard some people adapt to it well but others not so much.
I’ve got astigmatism and myopia. I wear Acuvue Oasys and like them much better than glasses. I got contacts in 2000 or 2001, back when contacts for astigmatism were newish and only one disposable kind was available. Those didn’t work for me, felt too dry in my eyes. Happily there are now plenty of brands to try.
How bad is the astigmatism? If it’s minor you can get away with regular (non-toric) contacts and a slight adjustment to the prescription.
I don’t know how bad it is. I set an appointment for June (first available with the eye MD) and we will see.
They call that “monovision.” I use it with soft contacts (used to do it with rigid contacts) and it works great. IF your brain can adapt to it, that is. Of the people I know who’ve tried it, I’d estimate one out of five couldn’t adapt to it. The rest love it.
As for astigmatism, my old rigid lenses corrected for it automatically, by virtue of being rigid and therefore forcing a spherical surface in front of your eye. Soft lenses need to be prescribed with the proper “tilt” to correct for the astigmatism. Either way, I haven’t had any problems with it.
It does depend on what the cause of the astigmatism is.
If it is an uneveness in the surface of the eye (the most common), then hard contact lenses will correct that. Soft contact lenses will not, which is one reason why Toric lenses exist.
If the deformaty is inside the eye (less common), then hard contact lenses will not correct it. Only Toric lenses will work.
Your eye proffesional will be able to diagnose your cause of astigmatism, and will suggest what is appropriate for you.
I wear hard contact lenses (I do have some astigmatism), and they are great for correcting my nearsightness. I have to wear simple reading glasses over the contacts in order to read or do other close work.
Some people have had success by having a slightly weaker prescription in one eye, which is then used to read, while the other eye is used for seeing far.