Treatment of Long-sightedness

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If you are diagnosed as long-sighted, it is likely that your optician will prescribe glasses or contact lenses to correct your vision. It is usually necessary for your optician to conduct further tests to work out exactly what kind of glasses you need. You may be asked to wear special lenses to look at various charts containing different letters or colours.

After further examination, your optician will discuss the results with you and your best course of action. They will give you a prescription for the type of glasses or contact lenses that you need to wear, which you can use at any optician.

Long-sightedness can be corrected with a convex lens that ensures light rays fall on the retina and focus accurately. The lens of the eye becomes less flexible with age, which is why you may need to increase the strength of your prescription as you get older. If your ability to focus is significantly reduced, you may need to wear two different pairs of glasses. Alternatively, some people use varifocal or bifocal lenses in order to see objects clearly that are both close up and far away. Long-sighted children with a squint need to be monitored carefully to avoid a lazy eye (amblyopia) developing.

Contact lenses are also popular, and there are three types available: rigid, gas permeable, and soft. Soft lenses are the most popular, and are usually worn only once, or for a few days. If you choose to wear contact lenses, it is important to maintain good lens hygiene in order to prevent eye infections developing.

Cataract patients are sometimes given intra-ocular lens implants. This is a plastic lens placed in the eye to prevent light rays from refracting incorrectly.

Long-sightedness can also be treated more permanently with radial keratotomy. Many eye surgeons in the UK are opposed to this, however, as it involves making deep cuts in the cornea, which never fully heal. This can cause day-to-day variation in vision, and glare around objects is often noticed.

Photo refractive surgery is another available treatment for hypermetropia, as is laser eye surgery. Both these treatments offer permanent correction, but they are expensive, and take time to heal, so it is important that you are fully informed about the procedure before embarking on it.