Hyperopia is a minus or a plus?

Hyperopia is a special condition of the eye, which often opposes myopia. With farsightedness or hypermetropia, the focus of the image when looking at an object falls not on the retina, but for it. The long-sighted eye, as a rule, is shorter than the healthy one. People who suspect this disease, often worried, hyperopia is a minus or a plus? On this depends on the choice of glasses and treatment in general.

Features of the disease

Hypermetropia is not so common,as myopia. It is believed that the main symptom of this condition is poor vision near, however it is worth noting that poor vision is also encountered in the distance. Often, hyperopia is an age-related problem, most people meet its symptoms after 30 to 40 years.

However, because of congenital features of the structure of the eye, hypermetropia can occur in children. In this case, you need to immediately engage in vision correction, in children such a pathology can lead to more severe problems, for example, to strabismus.

In addition to reducing visual acuity near, far-sighted people pursue a number of other symptoms that are not always immediately associated with eye problems. People with hypermetropia often experience the following symptoms:

• feeling of tension, burning in the eyes, especially after a busy day;
• rapid fatigue, periodic rather severe headaches;
• difficulties with reading small texts, examining objects that are near.

All these phenomena are the consequences of hyperopia. Without correction, this disease can begin to progress, causing more and more difficulties. Allocate the following degrees of hypermetropia, depending on the number of diopters, which deteriorated vision:

• first degree, weak, up to +2 diopters;
• second degree, more serious, stands out from +2 - 2.5 to + 4.5 diopters;
• the third degree, is the heaviest, starts from +4.5 diopters.

At the first stages of the disease the patient does not feel serious difficulties, pain in the eyes of long work may start to appear. If the farsightedness is found on the first degree, often the patient only needs specialized reading glasses, which help to better distinguish the small font, without unnecessarily provoking eye strain.

At later stages, serious discomfort may occur, distinguishing small fonts and objects near it will be extremely difficult. At the third degree of the disease, visual acuity decreases not only near, but in the distance.

Important! Hyperopia at an early age almost never occurs.

The difference between hyperopia and myopia

The main difference between these diseases is where the images inside the eye are focused, the other differences between these two states come from this. With farsightedness, the image is focused behind the retina, the rays of light gather literally behind the eye.

With myopia, the rays of light are focused, not reaching the retina. Therefore, when hypermetropia people better see objects located far away, and with myopia - objects that are close. In this regard, glasses for vision correction should be selected with different signs, for each disease you need your diopters.

Farsighted glasses: plus or minus

Hypertension requires glasses with plus diopters. With this disease, the eye has too weak optics, it does not have enough positive diopters to focus the image on the retina, and not behind it.

Correctly selected glasses with "plus" lenses will help to literally pull the focus of the image back onto the retina, the patient will begin to see better. Therefore, with farsightedness, only diopters with a "+" sign can help.

It is also worth mentioning that for people with farsightedness, specialized reading glasses are common. Many people with this disease are forced to push books and any other printed texts to the distance of the outstretched hand, with the reading glasses this problem is easily solved.

"Plus" glasses can be easily identified by appearance. Put on a person, they visually increase the size of the eye. To date, glasses for farsightedness are the most effective non-surgical method of vision correction.

Important! It is possible to select glasses for hypermetropia only after passing a full examination with an ophthalmologist.

Treatment for hyperopia

In more advanced stages of the disease it can be difficult to use only reading glasses. If farsightedness causes serious inconvenience, it should begin its full treatment. There are several methods for correcting vision with hypermetropia.

Important! On the treatment of hyperopia in the home, you can find out on our website.

The most effective and modern method of vision correction for hypermetropia with surgery is laser correction. There are several methods, choosing the right one depends on the individual characteristics. However, it should be taken into account that it is permissible to perform laser operations only after reaching the age of eighteen. At an earlier age, the effect will be temporary. In general, laser correction is the most effective method for the farsightedness of the initial degrees.

As an alternative to glasses, contact lenses can be offered for permanent wearing. Use them is acceptable from late adolescence, the main plus lens - their invisibility, in addition, unlike glasses, they do not change the size of objects. However, it is worth considering that after fifteen years of permanent wearing of lenses, the eye can begin to reject them, then you will have to look for a replacement.

With hypermetropia in the advanced stage, when the change reaches +6 diopters, laser surgery is useless. Then a suitable method of vision correction is microsurgery.

When the microsurgical operation of the eye removes the lens, in its place is placed an artificial one. Artificial lens instead of the natural lens is able to restore the previous clarity of vision at any stage of the disease, but this operation is usually resorted to when other techniques do not work.

There is also implantation of phakic lenses, this method is new, it is used in young people who have not yet lost the ability to focus themselves.

In general, with farsightedness, several variants of vision correction are available, choosing the appropriate one should be based on individual characteristics. When choosing glasses, you should always remember that the diopter needs a "+" sign.