What is hypermetropia?
Visual disturbances can affect your daily life and cause various illnesses such as high blood pressure or recurring headaches. Sometimes it is difficult to endure on a daily basis due to the inconvenience involved. Vision problems must be treated as soon as certain symptoms appear. While myopia is one of the most common diseases, the opposite, hyperopia (or hypermetropia), is not necessarily known to everyone. What is hyperopia? What are the symptoms What are the causes of the disease? How is it to be treated? Which frame should I choose? These are all questions that need clarification.
Hyperopia, a little-known disease
Almost a disease
Hyperopia is not a disease in itself, but a visual defect. Far-sighted people have difficulty clearly distinguishing nearby objects while maintaining a good view of distant objects. To make up for this lack of near vision, people with this disorder tend to squint to improve near vision. However, over the years, the eyes become tired and lose sight even from a distance. As with myopia, this eye defect is usually not the focus of attention. On the one hand, this can be explained by the fact that this deformation of the eye is not associated with complications and is less common than myopia. Likewise, hyperopia usually develops late in life and can be confused with age-related deterioration in eyesight.
The causes of hyperopia
Hyperopia, also known as the "short eye", is a deformation of the eyeball that disrupts the image formation in the fundus, which is why vision is blurred. In particular, vision is a reflection of light that passes through the lens to the retina. In hyperopia, the distance between the lens and retina is too short and the eye has difficulty adjusting what affects short-distance vision. To clear up near vision, the eye performs a visual focusing process by contracting the muscles in the eye to "pick up" the passage of light through the retina. This extra effort contributes to eye fatigue and causes uncomfortable sensations when using myopia.
Symptoms
Hyperopia is often viewed as having difficulty seeing objects clearly at close range, which can lead to visual impairment when reading or doing everyday tasks that require close vision. The bottom line is that you have increased eye strain when reading or working on your computer. Frequent headaches after exposure to near vision are also a sign of this eye deformity. These headaches can also be accompanied by burning eyes or constant eye strain. The tendency to squint at close range can also be a sign of hyperopia. Finally, strabismus is a possibility of hyperopia in children. However, in young people with hyperopia, this eye defect can be corrected without intervention as they age.
Diagnosis and treatment
Presbyopia and hyperopia
Presbyopia and hyperopia are two visual disturbances that are often confused as they lead to deterioration in vision at close range. Presbyopia and hyperopia are different impairments, but they are similar to eyesight. Presbyopia results in lens fatigue that alters the reflection of light in the eye and drastically reduces near vision as it is difficult to accommodate the eye while seeing from a distance remains intact. Hyperopia, on the other hand, interferes with the reflection of light on the retina due to an eye that is too short, which also interferes with near vision, as the eye has difficulty adapting to the reflections from the light. While these 2 diseases can show up at an advanced age (in your forties), hyperopia can also be hereditary.
The diagnosis of hyperopia
Hyperopia can be classified according to various degrees of importance from mild to severe. This deformation is mainly measured by the positive dioptre, which is reflected in the degree of correction of the eye. A positive dioptre between 0 and 2.5 is called mild hyperopia. It is most common for deformities of the eye. Moderate hyperopia leads to eye correction in the range of 2.5 to 6 degrees and is less common. Finally, the rarest cases occur with severe hyperopia, which requires a positive dioptre greater than 6 degrees. During the consultation, it is common for each eye to have a different dioptre.
Possible treatments
Although hyperopia does not cause complications, the fact remains that this change affects the daily life of people with this deformity of the eye, which is problematic. While treating low level hyperopia is not a priority in a young patient, it is essential in the elderly with signs of presbyopia or in young people with high levels of hyperopia. Today there are a multitude of alternatives to treat this deformity of the eye. The first is to operate the eye with a laser to regulate the proper formation of the image on the retina, or by inserting an implant. The second alternative would be to wear contact lenses, which would limit efforts to conform to the eye and reduce eye fatigue. After all, the best treatment is wearing corrective glasses to both reduce eye strain and gradually correct eye defects. Wearing glasses would then make it possible to reposition the image produced on the retina and limit the strain on the eyes. If corrective eyewear treatment for your hyperopia proves to be the quickest alternative, there are certain configurations of your corrective eyewear that you need to understand to ensure your comfort.
Hyperopic: How do I choose my glasses?
Corrective lenses
In order to correct hyperopia and improve the flow of light through the eye to reduce the blurring of near vision, corrective lenses must focus the light. Positive grade or positive dioptre glasses allow for correct convergence and alignment of light in the retina and promote good vision. The greater the correction, the greater the effect of light convergence. These corrective glasses against hyperopia are also known as "convex glasses". These lenses have the peculiarity of having thin edges and a thicker centre, which can lead to a magnifying effect if the associated frame is poorly chosen. However, you can limit this magnifying effect by opting for thinned glasses, a preferred choice for high grades of glass.
Which frame material should you choose?
Convex lenses are generally thick corrective lenses. With this in mind, it is advisable to choose a resistant material such as stainless steel or titanium. However, acetate or plastic frames can also do the trick, as long as they can properly accommodate thick lenses. The goal is to limit the magnifying effect on your eyes. It is preferable to choose a material with a more or less thick frame. However, you should avoid frames that are too thin that your convex lenses may not support.
What kind of eyeglasses for hyperopia?
If the choice of frame is generally defined by the morphology of your face, this rule is found in the case of hyperopia in the background to give way to a golden rule: avoid large square or rectangular frames at all costs. The biggest challenge in choosing a suitable frame for convex lenses is to minimize the magnifying effect. To do this, you need to choose a more rounded frame that will allow you to centre your eyes. Too large or rectangular a frame can increase the effect of the thickness of your lenses, increasing the magnification of your eyes and promoting the magnifying effect that we want to avoid. The solution would then be to opt for rounded and less widened lenses in order to maintain vertical and horizontal harmony in your face. For rounded or oval face morphologies, you can opt for more structured glasses, but always keep a rounder and more compact shape of the glasses. A structured frame at the level of the eyebrows with a rounded shape to complete the strapping is preferable. Wide frames should be avoided as they add to the thick effect of the lenses. For colours, be sure to choose frames that match your skin tone and avoid drawing attention to the frames.
