Overview

The vision of distant objects can be blurred due to four common refractive errors: nearsightedness (myopia), which makes far-away objects look blurry; farsightedness (hyperopia), which makes nearby objects look blurry; astigmatism, which makes far-away and nearby objects look blurry or distorted; and presbyopia, which affects middle-aged and older adults.

Causes

Causes of refractive errors are,

• Changes in the form of the eye and length of the eyeball (when the eyeball grows excessively long or short)

• An eye's naturally steeper or flatter surface.

• A lens that is thinner or thicker than usual 

• Ageing of the lens

• Problems with the cornea's shape.

Symptoms

The most common symptom is blurred vision. Additional symptoms include 

• Seeing halos or glares around bright lights 

• Double vision 

• Fuzzy vision 

• Squinting 

• Headaches 

• Eye strain (the feeling of fatigue or soreness in the eyes) 

• Difficulty concentrating while using a computer or reading.

Ayurvedic View

Timira- It is drushti gata roga (meaning disease that affects the eye vision). When dosha, namely vata, pitta and kapha, reach the patala of the eye (layer of eye retina) causes visual disturbance, this is refractive error. When dosha is in the first patala, the person can't see things properly; in the second patala, the person sees web-like structures, etc. If this is not treated or corrected, then it can cause loss of vision. The Ayurveda way of approach is to correct the root cause of this disease, bring dosha back to balance, reduce symptoms by Ayurvedic panchakarma treatment and special local treatment done for the eyes, so that the person's vision is improved.