Optician

[EcclesCake]

What does axis refer to on an eye examination report?

[bhg481]

The angle at which the astigmatism is.

[EcclesCake]

OK, thanks for that. Astigmatism was mentioned but I forgot to follow through with my questions.

The difference between the two eyes was ~ 1:3. I'll do some Googling unless anyone can shine some light on what it means?

[bhg481]

Your eyes are 2 quite separate organs; each has its own focal length and degree of astigmatism. The ratio between them is irrelevant.

[EcclesCake]

I haven't quite reached Google yet....

I've always been unclear what astigmatism is and am curious to understand what the numbers mean. HIgh good/low bad etc.

I'm not concerned, just curious to understand the script from the Optician.

[EcclesCake]

I forgot to add that I sustained an eye injury some years ago and am idly wondering if it is the same eye that has the more extreme astigmatism.

[bhg481]

Astigmatism is a result of the lens in your eye not being perfectly spherical ie, slightly cylindrical; this results in the image on your retina being in focus in one orientation and (slightly) out of focus in other orientations. In good light it may not be noticable but in poor light it can start to be more obvious and can result, say, in text being difficult to read. The solution is to make the optician's lens cylindrical at right-angles to your eye-lens - the axis is the angle your eye-lens is cylindrical and tells the lens maker at what angle to make the correction lens cylindrical.

[EcclesCake]

Thank you for the explanation.

[hc4361]

More of a rugby ball than a football.