Dr. Patel grew up in Texas and studied at the University of Texas at Arlington. In 1996, he graduated as a member of the Gold Key International Optometric Honor Society with a doctor of optometry degree from the University of Houston. Dr. Patel completed a residency in Hospital Based and Geriatric Eye Care at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Portland, Oregon. During his residency, Dr. Patel served as a clinical instructor to interns from Pacific University and the New England College of Optometry. Dr. Patel has provided hours of clinical procedures workshops for both the Oregon and Alberta, Canada Optometric Associations. He has volunteered his skills on an eye care team in Thailand, and the Special Olympics programs in Oregon. Dr. Patel also serves as a clinical examiner for the National Boards in Optometry, as a consultant to the Portland VA Medical Center, and Adjunct Faculty for the Pacific University College of Optometry.
DR. RAJ PATEL: Hi, I'm Dr. Raj Patel, Optometrist at Vancouver Contact Lens and Vision Clinic, here in Vancouver, Washington, and I'd like to talk to you a little bit about astigmatism. What is astigmatism? Well, astigmatism is a vision condition that causes blurry vision due to either an irregular shape to the cornea which is that clear dome over the front part of the eye that covers the pupil and the iris, or an irregular shape to the lens which is a structure inside the eye, behind the pupil. And so, when either the cornea or lens has an irregular curvature to it, when light passes through there, it's going to not have that best amount of focus. And so, because the light is unfocused, it causes people to see blurry, and so that blurriness will be at any distance; it will be blurry for the patient in a distance or in a near. And so, most patients have some degree of astigmatism; slight amounts of astigmatism usually don't affect vision in and don't really require treatment. However, large amounts of astigmatism can cause blurred vision, some eye discomfort, and headaches, and so those individuals should have it looked at and treated. Another way to describe astigmatism has to do with an analogy of a football versus a basketball. And so, if this is an example of a cornea, that clear dome in front of the eye, astigmatism is essentially when the front of the eye, instead of being spherical like this or round, it's a little bit elliptical, more football shaped. So, when the cornea is football shaped like that, the light that passes through is not at the same focus as it is when it's completely round like that. So, once again, the way doctors determines if patient has an astigmatism or not is based on checking the vision, and so when you go to your eye doctor, they will check your vision to see how well you see in the far and in the near. They'll do a test called a refraction which is the determination of the prescription, and that tells us if you're nearsighted or farsighted, or if you have one of these eyes where there is some of this astigmatism. And then lastly, there's a measurement called keratometry, and keratometry is a measurement where the doctors take a measurement of the curvature on the cornea, and it lets us know how round the front of the eye is and based on that, we can figure out if it's again spherical or oblong like that. And so, when the patients have some amount of this astigmatism, some amount of "oblongness", we have them treated with one of three approaches, and that is glasses; we can prescribed glasses to help patients deal with their astigmatism. The glasses essentially compensate for the astigmatism, helping the light that goes through the cornea to be clear and at a pinpoint focus once again. Or we can have patients wear contact lenses; there are actually contact lenses that correct astigmatism, and those are called toric contact lenses and they work wonderfully well for individuals who like to reduce their need on glasses. And then lastly, laser surgery or other refractive surgical procedures can also help eliminate or reduce the amount of astigmatism. So, if you are an individual that have complaints of blurry vision, eye strain, or headaches, and it has been a couple of years since you have been to your eye doctor, go ahead and see your eye doctor and get it check out, and if the reason of your vision complaints is due to astigmatism, there are wonderful ways to help deal with it.
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