Astigmatism and MGD

[Mastiff]

I developed astigmatism in my late 20's after have perfect vision up to that point. I've sort of become obsessed with determining the "cause" of this, since I don't believe simple genetics would kick in late in life like that, plus my right eye is much worse and is also my bad dry eye/MGD eye. One hypothesis is that swelling around the eye is putting pressure on, causing the astigmatism. I wonder if others with MGD also have astigmatism in their prescription.

[indrep]

What can happen is dry eye created the astigmatism. Corneas that suffer from dry eye are constantly in various stages of edema. This swelling of the cornea creates irregular surface contours. One of the ways to diagnose dry eye is when the patient complains of fluctuating vision.

[calli66]

I only have mild meibomian gland problems for now (doc says the oil is a bit thick). The one time I had bad blepharitis (when I was still using Restasis) my astigmatism got really bad.

For me, the astigmatism is really noticeable the drier my eyes get. For example, if I have to drive somewhere late at night (when my eyes are driest), I find that I can see fairly well for short trips (like 10 minutes). Any longer than that, and my eyes get drier and drier and the vision really deteriorates----I really notice the axis where I usually have my astigmatism is much much blurrier. I hate driving at night for this reason. More dry, more astig, more blur.

C

[Bekkestad]

I only have mild meibomian gland problems for now (doc says the oil is a bit thick). The one time I had bad blepharitis (when I was still using Restasis) my astigmatism got really bad.

For me, the astigmatism is really noticeable the drier my eyes get. For example, if I have to drive somewhere late at night (when my eyes are driest), I find that I can see fairly well for short trips (like 10 minutes). Any longer than that, and my eyes get drier and drier and the vision really deteriorates----I really notice the axis where I usually have my astigmatism is much much blurrier. I hate driving at night for this reason. More dry, more astig, more blur.

C

This is so true. Still there are doctors and opticians (all of them i meet) that claims my dry eyes should not affect astigmatism.

[Bekkestad]

I only have mild meibomian gland problems for now (doc says the oil is a bit thick). The one time I had bad blepharitis (when I was still using Restasis) my astigmatism got really bad.

For me, the astigmatism is really noticeable the drier my eyes get. For example, if I have to drive somewhere late at night (when my eyes are driest), I find that I can see fairly well for short trips (like 10 minutes). Any longer than that, and my eyes get drier and drier and the vision really deteriorates----I really notice the axis where I usually have my astigmatism is much much blurrier. I hate driving at night for this reason. More dry, more astig, more blur.

C

This is so true. Still there are doctors and opticians (all of them i meet) that claims that dry eyes should not affect astigmatism. And that after i done my own tests when my eyes are really dry and when they are a litte bit better. My astigmatism is pending from 0.25 (non or little dry) to 0.75 (very dry). I am totally sure.

[Mastiff]

Yes, I'm definitely frustrated by the way eye docs respond to my questions about this type of thing. It's always sort of an eye roll and a response to along the lines of "it just happens", "it's genetic", or whatever. I've found a smattering of articles discussing how pressure on the eye from various sources can cause astigmatism, but that's it. Everyone knows a big bump on the eyelid can cause a bunch of astigmatism, but for some reason nobody will believe the smaller pressures might cause lower astigmatism too. I wouldn't be surprised if astigmatism was nearly always caused by factors external to the eye/cornea itself (I mean, that they eye is not genetically coded to have it). Since all I have is astigmatism, and it's driving me nuts since it's hard to correct, I'd kill to get to the bottom of it.