Hyperopia (farsightedness): a visual defect more complicated than you’d guess

While the name myopia (myopia) is appropriate to the symptoms of this common visual defect (its essence is clear vision only at short distances – the higher the defect, the shorter the distance), the name farsightedness – the colloquially used name for hyperopia (hypermetropia, hyperopia) is misleading and, most importantly, does not cover all the symptoms faced by hyperopic people.

Simplifying the matter, we can say that myopia is a simpler defect, easier to correct, while hyperopia is much more than “seeing clearly only those objects that are far away.” Let’s take a … closer look at this visual defect, which is immeasurably more complicated than you might assume.

See well at any distance – but until then

It’s true that a farsighted person has trouble seeing clearly objects located close to his eyes, but because he abuses the accommodative mechanism, he usually has trouble seeing objects clearly from any distance.

What’s the deal with this accommodation? Well, in the farsighted eye (whose breaking power is too weak) the image of the objects we look at is formed behind the retina, which in many cases is not a limitation to sharp vision. Thanks to the ability to accommodate, the far-sighted eye transfers the image from behind the retina to the retina, so that distant objects are seen sharply.

But the longer one uses the accommodative mechanism incompatibly – it should only help one perceive objects up close – the sooner it becomes unsettled and begins to fail.

Of course, it takes a while before the eyes finally refuse to cooperate. If the so-called amplitude of accommodation is large enough, hyperopic people simply see well on a daily basis for years. Until a crisis comes – accommodations, weakening with age, take its toll, and a farsighted person, who has never worn glasses, goes to an ophthalmologist at the age of 30-40, complaining of poor vision both near and far.

For a while, a farsighted person sees well at any distance, until at some point he finds that he can’t see well at any distance.

This postponement in time is not good at all. Short-sighted people will probably think now that it’s good for the farsighted: he himself has been wearing glasses forever, because without them he can’t move, and this one can avoid eyeglass correction for half his life! There is nothing to envy. In the course of the development of the defect, the farsighted person also faces other problems, which include:

• zezy associated with accommodative insufficiency, convergence, divergence – or their excesses
• symptoms associated with asthenopia (a subjective feeling of weakness in the eyes caused by an uncorrected visual defect): eye fatigue, eye pain, headaches, nausea, tearing, burning

A farsighted person affected by a large visual defect may suffer from low vision. In this case, no correction can improve visual acuity. You can read more about low vision on our blog.

Depending on the size of the defect, hyperopia is distinguished:

• small – up to +2.5D
• medium – +2.5D to +6.0D
• large – over +6.0D

Whether hyperopia (farsightedness) undergoes laser correction

Yes, in cases of hyperopia, laser intervention has good results. During ophthalmic laser surgery, a greater curvature of the cornea is created, which increases the refractive power and thus improves comfort and visual acuity. The specific method of treatment depends on the number of diopters, it is determined individually during the initial examination and consultation with the doctor.

In correcting hyperopia, the following are used:

LASIK – a two-step technique in which the cornea is incised with a scalpel (microkeratome), and then the corneal surface is modeled so that it can properly focus the image onto the retina.

FemtoLASIK – thanks to a precise femtosecond laser, the surgeon makes a cut in the cornea, creating a thin flap 0.1 mm thick – a flap. He uses an excimer laser to reshape the previously exposed cornea for a few seconds, then the flap is closed back up; it attaches and forms a protective corneal barrier.