Many patients with myopia have some degree of astigmatism, or ovalness to their cornea. It is the most common refractive condition, and occurs to some extent in most eyes. Astigmatism occurs when the cornea is shaped more like a football than a basketball. As a result, patients with astigmatism experience distortion or tilting of images because of unequal bending of light rays entering the eye. Patients with high degrees of astigmatism have blurred vision not only for distant objects, as with myopia, but for near objects as well.

Astigmatism is also measured in diopters. Of all myopic people, 50% or more have astigmatism as well. Most of these people have corrections of less than 1 diopter. The table below shows the categories of severity for astigmatism:

• Mild Astigmatism
  < 1.00 diopters
• Moderate Astigmatism
  1.00 to 2.00 diopters
• evere Astigmatism
  2.00 to 3.00 diopters
• Extreme Astigmatism
  > 3.00 diopters

LASIK can correct astigmatism up to 6 diopters. Patients with severe or extreme myopia are more likely to require an enhancement of their LASIK procedure to correct small amounts of residual astigmatism. We have helped many patients with extreme astigmatism achieve reduced dependence on glasses and contact lenses.

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