Children's vision astigmatism

It is nothing for adults to have astigmatism due to long-term use of their eyes, staying up late, and not paying attention to eye care. However, many children, whose vision has not yet fully developed, begin to have astigmatism problems at a very young age, which makes parents very worried. First of all, astigmatism can lead to decreased vision, and things often become blurred, and they may experience dizziness, headaches, sore eyes, and may even be accompanied by nausea and vomiting. What should we do about children's astigmatism?

How to treat astigmatism in children?

What is astigmatism in children?

Astigmatism is a type of refractive error. When the refractive surface of a child's eyeball (mainly the corneal surface) becomes an irregular spherical surface due to various reasons, the refractive power of each diameter and each part is uneven. Then, the parallel light rays entering the eye cannot form a complete focus on the retina, resulting in an unclear image. This type of eye is called astigmatism in children.

Children with astigmatism have decreased vision and often suffer from headaches, dizziness, and sore eyes after looking at objects for a long time. Some children also feel nauseous and want to vomit. Like children with myopia, they often squint their eyes to see objects more clearly.

Treatment of astigmatism in children

It mainly depends on the quality of vision and the severity of visual fatigue. If the child has regular astigmatism, does not cause visual impairment, and has no visual fatigue, no treatment is needed. If children have visual fatigue, no matter how large or small the astigmatism is, even if the astigmatism is very slight, they need to have their pupils dilated for refraction and wear appropriate corrective glasses. In principle, all degrees of astigmatism must be corrected, but if the child's astigmatism is too high and cannot adapt, he or she can first wear low-degree corrective glasses, slowly adapt, and then wear high-degree corrective glasses.

For keratoconus astigmatism, contact lenses are the best choice and can even improve vision! However, corneal opacity or cracks caused by corneal injury cannot be corrected. So it is important to protect the cornea.

Children under the age of six should be examined early. If astigmatism is found during the vision screening, they should wear glasses to treat the astigmatism as soon as possible. Astigmatism above 200 degrees can cause symptoms of amblyopia. If the golden period of treatment between the ages of six and nine is missed, even if glasses are worn in the future, it will not be able to treat the amblyopia that arises later.

Classification of astigmatism in children

Curvature astigmatism: It is mainly caused by the different curvatures of the refractive media in different directions of the eye.

Physiological astigmatism: It is mainly caused by physiological factors such as the eyelid squeezing the cornea, and is generally manifested as a slightly larger vertical curvature of the anterior interface of the cornea.

Acquired astigmatism: changes in the cornea's morphology due to trauma, surgery, pressure from unqualified contact lenses, etc.

Crystalline astigmatism: caused by different curvatures on the meridians of the lens surface, such as conical lenses.

Astigmatism due to optical center deviation: mainly caused by subluxation and tilt of the lens.

Muscular astigmatism: It is mainly caused by the different refractive powers of the ciliary muscle in different directions.

Index astigmatism: It is mainly caused by the different refractive indices of different parts of the refractive medium.