Hyperopia (long sightedness): symptoms and treatment options

Questions about Hyperopia (long sightedness)

Each answer below is the short version; the question links to the page that carries it in full, with sources.

• What is long sightedness (hyperopia)?

  Long sightedness is a condition in which light comes to focus behind the retina, which the eye can often compensate for at a distance by focusing harder, at the cost of effort and eventual blur.

• What causes long sightedness?

  Long sightedness is caused by the eye being shorter than its focusing power requires, or by the cornea being flatter than average. It is often present from birth and frequently runs in families.

• Can long sightedness be corrected with LASIK?

  Long sightedness can be treated with laser correction, but it is assessed more cautiously than short sightedness because treating it requires removing tissue towards the edge of the cornea and outcomes are more variable at higher prescriptions and in older eyes.

• Can long sightedness be corrected with laser surgery?

  Laser correction can address long sightedness in suitable eyes, but where the condition is mild and only affects reading vision after forty, a different problem may be the real one, and it may have different solutions.

• Can LASIK correct long sightedness?

  Long sightedness can be treated with LASIK, but it is a different surgical problem from short sightedness and suitability is assessed more cautiously, particularly at higher prescriptions and in older eyes.

• Is long sightedness the same as presbyopia?

  No. Long sightedness (hyperopia) is a focusing error you are born with, where the eye’s optical power is too weak for its length. Presbyopia is the age-related stiffening of the lens that affects near focus later in life. Both blur close vision, and they are different problems with different corrections.

• Can children be long sighted?

  Yes, and mild long sightedness is common in young children, whose eyes focus well enough to compensate for it. Most grow out of it as the eye lengthens. A young child with a high prescription may need glasses, because the effort of compensating can affect how the eyes work together.

• Does long sightedness get worse with age?

  The prescription itself usually changes little. What changes is your ability to compensate for it: the lens stiffens with age, so the same amount of long sightedness becomes harder to hide, and people often notice symptoms in their thirties or forties that were always there.

• Can long sightedness be cured?

  It can be corrected rather than cured. Glasses, contact lenses and refractive surgery all change where light focuses in the eye; the shape of the eye itself is unchanged, and it can keep changing with age. Long sightedness can also be corrected during cataract surgery, when the natural lens is replaced anyway.

• Is long sightedness hereditary?

  There is a strong inherited tendency, and the way the eye grows matters as much as eye optics: a shorter-than-average eye is long sighted. A family history does not predict an individual’s prescription, but it is a reason to have children tested rather than to wait for symptoms.

• How is long sightedness measured?

  By refraction: a test that finds the lens power that gives you the clearest vision, expressed as a prescription with a plus sign for long sightedness. In younger patients the measurement is usually repeated after drops that relax the focusing muscle, because otherwise the eye hides part of the prescription.

• Can long sightedness cause headaches or eye strain?

  It can, because the eye is doing continuous work to compensate. The usual pattern is discomfort after sustained near tasks, such as reading or screen work, rather than a headache on waking. Blur is not always present, which is what makes this easy to attribute to something else.