Do you suffer from headaches? It could be because of your eyesight…

Do you get easily tired when you have to look at things close to? Do you find it difficult to work for a number of hours at a time without resting your eyes?

This could be a sign of hypermetropia (long sight). But don’t confuse hypermetropia – which makes it difficult to see things close to – with presbyopia which comes with age and simply reflects the eye’s inability to adjust properly for near vision. Presbyopia results from sclerosis (or hardening) of the crystalline lens: the lens in the eye that adjusts to allow us to see objects at a distance and close to.

Hypermetropia, on the other hand, is the result of a defect in the structure of the eye which, in a sense, is too short. This causes the image to be formed behind the retina, which then reconstructs it, but imperfectly. In young people this blurred image is corrected but this requires an additional effort of accommodation, which is why uncorrected hypermetropia makes close vision tiring.

Tired vision is a warning sign that you need to see an ophthalmologist. More severe cases of hypermetropia are often accompanied by strabismus (crossed eyes). However slight this may be, it still aggravates the problem and it is therefore important to have these defects sorted out as quickly as possible.