Astigmatism Correction: - Just Ditch It? | Endmyopia | Jake Steiner 

Opticians usually recommend going in yearly for new glasses. Because of my frugality I’ve only gone every 3-4 years so thankfully my eyes aren’t as bad as they might’ve been had I followed their advice :)

there is nothing wrong with your video quality! I only think about it when you apologize for it. No need to. Content is great. thx

My very first pair of glasses corrected a mild astigmatism in one eye. It immediately felt as if my eyeball was being squashed in a fatter (shortsighted shape) and it made me turn to one side. I was told, "New glasses always feel uncomfortable." Well, this didn't change and at the end of the day I ditched the glasses. I would personally avoid correcting an astigmatism especially if it's a by-product of something like posture. I think if you correct other things, like habits and avoiding over prescribing then the astigmatism will reduce anyway.

I was a little hesitant about reading the blog because I thought it would be boring, but it’s actually very interesting and quite funny. I feel like I’m falling in love with reading your posts, I plan on reading everything I can.

I have had glasses since I was 5. Every year I would go to my checkup and the opticians would reduce my prescription and I would improve. I haven't worn glasses in a while now, I can see quite well but only fine details are blurry. So Im definitely proof you can improve vision as mine did!

Thanks for the video. I have multiple congenital vision issues - myopia, astigmatism, nystagmus, ocular albinism, optic nerve hypoplasia. I'm now 37 and I haven't been wearing glasses constantly, but I sometimes wear distance glasses that correct my astigmatism and make distant objects look sharp again. I'm sure that my astigmatism is not lens induced because I rarely wear glasses, but still when I try the cross-cylinder method with rotation, there is very noticeable difference between 180 degrees and 90 degrees cyl axis. At 180 degrees everything looks sharper, at 90 degrees everything looks blurrier. It has been that way my entire life. So, it might mean that I indeed have persistent astigmatism that, most probably, cannot be treated with any exercising. But here's one problem. I have visited optometrists multiple times and asked them if it's possible to have glasses for reading that would help my eyes feel more relaxed, the same way as they do with my distance glasses. And both times the doctors seemed to fail to produce a useful prescription. The reading glasses I got indeed make reading very tiny print easier, but it gets very bad when reading larger texts, such as a book or computer screen. So I decided to read some books about the subject, about different kinds of astigmatism, Sturm's conoid, sphere equivalent. And then I bought a trial frame and some lenses around the values of my failed reading glasses and started to experiment with them and comparing to my current prescription. I found out that for some reason the doctors tended to overplus me. Maybe their best intention was to focus on those tiny texts to ensure I can read the smallest print, but that doesn't quite fit my everyday reading use scenarios. And at that time I wasn't smart enough to ask the right questions or to find a better doctor. After all, I already tried two doctors suggested by my friends and the registration office, and they both did not succeed. I don't blame them, my condition is tricky. So, while experimenting with my trial lenses I found out that I get good results when I apply astigmatism correction only and set sph to compensate for it to have 0 spherical equivalent. That is, +0.5sph -1cyl at 180 axis. According to the math, cyl is divided by 2 to get sph equivalent, and my empirical feeling with these glasses support this. With this combination I see much sharper both in distance and while reading. Still, reading doesn't feel much easier and I'm thinking if I should add some bit of + there, maybe +0.25sph. Of course, I could go to a doctor again to ask for advice (and most probably I will - to verify my results of experiments), but at the end it always ends up with subjective refraction being, well, subjective. The doctor will anyway pick the choice that I report as being better, and I find I can find the best option much easier when I'm at home and trying different use cases. There's just not enough time in doctor's office, especially considering also my nystagmus, which makes my eyes more shaky when I'm in foreign environment and not safe at home. So I'm wondering, is it a valid practice to have prescription that has no additional + or - sph but only those to correct astigmatism and have final spherical equivalent of 0 ? Is it ok or are there any caveats I should be aware of before I ask my doctor to write me such a prescription?

Funny, I joined your group because Fb recommended it (?). Then I started reading and following your videos and blog. Am now learning a lot these past two days. Thank you.

I love these thank you. I've improved my spherical but haven't worked on the astigmatism yet and am now. Can't wait !! 🎉

I am getting ready to eliminate my astigmatism correction in my right eye in my distance glasses. The left was eliminated, with much pressure by me, by the optometrist over a year ago. That was done by increasing spherical by -.25 and eliminating the -.50 cylinder. That's the same thing I'm going to do with my right eye. Then both will be equal. My differential doesn't have astigmatism correction and those are pretty much what I wear most of the day unless watching TV or driving. Plus, though I don't wear my contacts anymore, they don't have astigmatism correction either. I'm also going to get a new normalized set, -1.00 less than my distance glasses and without astigmatism correction. My right eye is ready!

What I think the astigmatisms are caused by the unbalanced muscle tension. So rotating eyes helps to even the muscle therefore can help to reduce the astigmatisms. My recently experience is that I reduced diopters for my short distance reading glasses by -2. But didn’t reduce the astigmatisms. This caused my eyes in spam. Very uncomfortable. I think the astigmatisms caused by the glasses wearing when in short distance reading for most people. Therefore the reduce on the diopters will have impact on the astigmatisms. So my recommendation is that, you need reduce some astigmatisms. Otherwise the eyes are being very uncomfortable. My opinion though. May not be right and it is just for your reference and discussion. Eventually once your eyes go to 20/20, you do not wear glasses anymore. the astigmatisms will gradually disappear.

According to several optometrists, I had (have?) a certain amount of astigmatism. I didn't give it much thought, and ignored it, and got a "normal" prescription instead. And it worked. Started with -4.5 on each eye, now wearing -3.75 and slowly improving.

Can we use the -.25 reduction rule for astigmatism even for low astigmatism?

What is his point.?

Hey Jake. Just getting my feet wet with your resources, and I'm VERY impressed thus far. I've been a student of NVI for over 10yrs now, but sadly the ol' autorefractor still shows the same dismal numbers. I have gone without glasses for over 4yrs straight, and I know no correction is also bad.. case in point. Anyways, I have an odd prescription, with a degree of ansiometrpia. This is the last autorefractor reading from 2015-07: LEFT: -1.25 -1.50 75 RIGHT: -0.75 -3.50 115The oldest script I have on file is this from 2005: LEFT: -1.75 -0.50 077 RIGHT: -1.25 -2.50 112Not much change, except the astig actually got worse!! BOOO! lolMy optometrist is my buddy, and doesn't even charge me for appts, so I'm a lucky one indeed. He would LOVE to see me go 20/20 naturally, but of course as a OD from Berkely has been programmed with skepticism. I would GLADLY pay you anything for your personal time to help me. I've done it all in the past, in fact I've written an autobiography about my journey thus far, with all the things and programs I've tried along the way. I've already spent literally thousands, so going a bit deeper doesn't scare me at all. $ isn't an object anyways. I just subscribed to your 7 day email thing. My name is Keith Gillespie. Am I able to reply to those and you will actually get it? I'd love to get some 1 on 1 time with ya. Cheers.

I have a couple questions. I hope someone can answer and you might have to bear with me a little bit I'm going to say a lot. The last time I got my eyes checked by an optometrist was about 7 years ago at a mall vision center they prescribed me as follows and I am only talking about glasses prescriptions here. In my right eye my spherical correction was a -5.00, the cylindrical was a -1.50 and the axis was 170 in my right eye. In my left eye 7 years ago my spherical correction was -5.75, the cylindrical was a -0.75 with an axis of 10. For those 7 years I was kind of skeptical and only dabbled in the idea of active focusing but I have found it to work. So I kept making spherical reductions but I always kept my cylindrical correction the same with the same axises as prescribed 7 years ago the 170 r eye the 10 left eye. I got my eyes checked at a Walmart optometrist 3 days ago and now my glasses prescription is as follows. In my right eye I am now at a -3.75 spherical, -1.75 cylindrical with the same 170 axis. In my left eye I am now at a -5.00 spherical, -1.00 cylindrical but with a different axis of 180 now. I now know that it is possible to reverse spherical correction with I believe it was active focusing that did it. My 2 questions are this. Is it possible to reverse your cylindrical astigmatism correction because mine got worse by 0.25 diopters in each eye over the span of 7 years? But I kinda think that is because I never reduced cylindrical I only reversed spherical. My second question well it's actually 2 questions is it ok to keep the same axis on each eye when I make reductions because the axis in my left eye was 10 now it is 180 because I plan on keeping the old cylindrical correction of right eye -1.50 and left eye -0.75. when I make future reductions and do you reverse astigmatism cylindrical correction the same way as spherical by print pushing and distance vision active focusing???

I'm just going to drop mine. I never should have let them prescribe me astigmatism correction in the first place. They just increased it to -0.75 a couple weeks before I discovered endmyopia and I got some normalized/differential glasses w/o astigmatism. Text isn't quite as crisp as before but it's still very readable. I don't see any problems. I'm hoping it just gets better when I stop correcting for it. Even if it doesn't get better but just doesn't get worse I think it's fine. I have to say I get the impression optometrists LIKE prescribing astigmatism because it's a little bit challenging as opposed to regular glasses. I remember the optometrist that first prescribed me astigmatism was really self satisfied when she was done.

Finally the video I've been looking for. Thank you

Has anyone gotten rid or knows how to get rid of corneal astigmatism naturally?

Good advice as always. Cool new haircut, man! Took me some time to get my cyl and axis sorted out. Good luck newcomers of endmyopia ;-] heheh

I have Astmatism and I can rightly tell you that you can't just ditch Asigmatism. For one both of my eye balls are football shaped and foot ball shaped eyes can't correct them selves. It's so strange when your farsighted but having a minus number for Astimatism and I form my experience being farsighted and with a minus Astigmatism number is not fun. When I take off my glasses I feel half blind but I'm not blind but a very blurry and very distorted letters without my glasses plus I have a bifocal of +2

Does wearing wrong axial lens cause more astigmation.

Thanks Jake, I will deal with my right eye's astigmatism later on after I drop down to -3 diopitors from -5. Right now I have a -0.75 cyl in the left and a -2 cyl in the right.

Will there be any problem if i wear less astigmation glasses. I mean instead of 0.75 cylinder to 0.50 cylinder.

eh so ditch it or what ?

My astigmatism is -1D on right side of eye and -0.75 0n the left side of the eye how to reduced it

Even 0.5 dioptres of astigmatism may need correction if the vision deterioration is significant and causing headaches/tension (e.g. 20/20 with correction but 20/50 without)

Can i just fix my astigmatism and my nearsightedness.

If I am going to eventually reduce my astigmatism what do I do about the axis part? There is the cylinder and axis, should I lower the axis along with the cylinder number?

I'm ordering glasses for the entire family, so we went to an optometrist in our area that does walk ins because we couldn't get appointments on short notice from our regular optometrist. The thing is, all of the prescriptions had a CYL of .5 diopters less than the previous prescription. In the case of prescriptions with 0.50 CLY or less, the new correction is 0 CYL, and in the one case where the CYL was OD 1.0, OS .75 the new prescription has both at .5, with the OD axis changed from 100 to 75 and the OS remaining 95. I love the reductions and I'm wondering how I could direct my regular optometrist to prescribe similarly. Oh BTW everyone in our group is over 50.

First progressive glasses on 59 3/4 years old years old yet one in bed watching TV or reading or playing a game on my tablet do I ever get headaches yes and I don’t get headaches sinus headaches and my glasses are heavy typo not gonna fix

I have had glasses since 12 years.There were problems with my eyes since. 11 years but i didnt want to wear glasses. Really!!!!I was against them . Firstly , I had 0,75 on both eyes and now is in my prescription 5 diopters on both . Despite this fact , i can see almost clearly with 4,5 and now i wanna drop to 4,25 to 4,00 .I hope that will be fine .My eyes are progressing a lot :-).And now i am nearly 15 years , forgot to say , sorry :-).And astigmatism?I have 0,5 but when i look at the moon , for instance , i see it many , many...Hope you understand :-).But i havent special cylindres in my lenses , thanks god! :O.Keep up your fantastic work , Jane , you are amazing ! And sorry for all those mistakes , i am not english B-).

I wanna read but my English is not that good 😩

I had cataracts removed, lenses inserted & allegedly my astigmatism corrected March/2017 ... and it did not correct my vision to 20/20 ... and my vision is also very blurry I’ve seen 7-9 optometrist & had several f/u visits w/the surgeon... and everyone says I can see 20/20 after the eye exams even though I tell them repeatedly that I can read the line, but it’s not clear or out of focus... & I’m so frustrated Should I have the lenses removed? I think he messed up & knows it - but won’t own up to it

one experience really weird about astigmatism was when I went shopping probably after a week two after I stoped wearing glasses and I observed that on the prices EX 99p the last part of the second 9 and p were faded as the Ink on the printer was on the last drop

Please ditch the terrible green screen it's very distracting

I don't think I have much of astigmatism just 0.25, but my myopia is around 3 in one eye and 4 in the other but the axis is really different like 5 degrees one eye 160 degrees in the other... I wish I had only myopia it would be easier to correct I don't understand how to correct it because everything is aimed to myopia

I don't get what do you mean by "ditch it"?

Going to not use numbers in this comment to avoid making it diopter-specific. I just want to check if I've understood. I have no sphere correction. I have less than +1 cylinder in one eye and less than -1 cylinder in the other. Does this mean I should turn cylinder to 0, and move my numbers over to the sphere correction when calculating my differentials? I've been searching under the astigmatism section of the blog, but I can only find success stories, explanations about what astigmatism is, and methods to measure it. Nothing about the actual procedure to improve it. Am I searching in the wrong place?

Hi Jake, I have a situation where the right eye is 20/20 no issues; the left on the other hand is currently 20/40 with "astigmatism -1.50 diopter". Before I used the eye patch two and half months ago the left eye tested at 20/70 with the Snellen Chart at twenty feet. It was clear that the right eye was suppressing the left, but regardless there has been a dramatic improvement. I work three hours or more outside five days a week which expands my bubble to 20/30, looking at distant signs appear to fuse with slight fuzziness. Indoors the bubble shrinks with a slight diffusion; the good news is I can read the computer print at greater than arms length, where at the beginning it was very difficult due to the double effect. For the record I do not wear glasses; but I have ordered the lens kit, your thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Does this work for astigmatism before lens?

I have -1.75 and -1.50 astigmatism. Would it be stupid to buy a pair of glasses with my current prescription but with no astigmatism correction as a first step?

I bet the dislikes are bunch of optometrists and opticians lol anyways how long did it take you to regain 20/20? and how do you maintain it?

I have astgmatisim in my two eyes..the right eye has 6 degrees..and ghe left one has 3 degree ...also I have keratocous in fhe two eyes but with lenses I can see 6/6... so ..who has a solution for my eyes and how can I start ?? llz advice??

Does active focus actually work for reducing astigmatism? I've noticed that clearing up "blurry blur" (myopia) is fairly easy for me with active focus, but directional blur won't go anywhere no matter how much I stare or blink, in fact, it often gets worse after I spend a long time trying to reduce the directional blur.

Ur supposed to be Reducing my screen time not telling me to go read more. Sum it up faster ;p

You got a haircut?