Please help :(

[Lucidite1]

Is this due to astigmatism?

Hi, so yesterday I learnt that my double vision/ghosting isn't neccesarily normal.
So, I have astigmatism. Sometimes, when I look at white text on black background on screens I experience ghosting. The letters start to appear under the text.

When I take my glasses off, and close my right eye - it's still here. When I switch eyes it disappears or is really slight. So it seems good.

But when I wear glasses it seems to be the worst when I look with my both eyes. When I close my right eye it's hardly here or even not here at all. When I switch my eyes it doesn't make any difference.

Does anybody have it like that too? 🥺 I'm getting scared.

[Carnation]

I get this and posted about it on another thread.
As far as I am aware I don't have any vision issues just supersensitive to certain things that being one of them.
White writing on black isn't the norm and the TV is a smudged affect.
You are going to be more aware of it now because it's flagged up an abnormality and anxiety loves that.

[Lucidite1]

I get this and posted about it on another thread.
As far as I am aware I don't have any vision issues just supersensitive to certain things that being one of them.
White writing on black isn't the norm and the TV is a smudged affect.
You are going to be more aware of it now because it's flagged up an abnormality and anxiety loves that.

I just got so cauhgt up on these people and articles which claim that it's okay if happens also while looking only with one eye. I'm going crazy that for me it seems not to be like that when wearing glassesglasses. But all the eye tests are done without them, as they are supposed to correct our vision, right? I can't even remember 😭

[Sparkling_Fairy]

I would think it's normal it gets worse with glasses, because it makes your vision a lot sharper and makes the contrast between black and white a lot bigger.
I have astigmatism and I don't even question my vision anymore. I have ghosting of letters, halo's around lights, letters that sometimes seem to move on the page so much that I have to stop reading. That last one very much has to do with how heightened my nervous system is. I think it's a combination of astigmatism and as Carnation said, how hard you're focusing on it right now

[Jordan85]

I was previously an expert at worrying about this - see my post history over a few years for proof. I wish I could go back in time and tell myself: "save yourself the next 3 years of worry. It's really nothing".

My ghosting came out of the blue - IIRC it was something like January of 2017 and I spent YEARS worrying about doubled letters on white text on dark backgrounds. I still get it all these years later but I've simply tuned out of noticing it because I went down every spooky avenue that anxiety was leading me without a shred of substance to it. What you have is completely normal. One way of checking, and don't make a habit of self testing things because anxiety loves that, but just for reassurance: prick a small hole in some cardboard. Get in a dark room and look at the text through the hole and it should sharpen right up. That basically tells you, it's normal astigmatismy stuff or normal abbrasions on the eye.

I had my eyes tested multiple times, glasses changed etc - to be honest, it doesn't make much of a difference. It's all about how light hits the back of your eye and there is only so much correcting glasses can do for that. I find contacts are slightly better because they're closer to the surface of the eye, but again there is only so much they can do too. You should notice it gets better in daylight situations or when you shine a torch near your eye and read the text, or do the pinhole thing - but again, don't become obsessed with these kinds of tests because what you have is ENTIRELY normal. Don't make the same mistake I did and worry about it and waste all that time being worried about it, trust me, it's just an endless self-created rabbit hole around something totally normal!

[Lucidite1]

Thank you all for reassurance!
Jordan, looking through the hole really does sharpen my vision! I also wonder if I should just accept the fact, that my naked eyes are natural and only then they are indicators of my vision problems, while the glasses are unnatural and can affect how differently I see while wearing them. So maybe I shouldn't even be focusing on what "bad" happens If I have them on, but take into considerstion that it "works alright" when I take them off to check? If it makes sense?
Sparkling_Fairy, I get all these things as well, just never bothered me until I learnt about this "if this happen with one eye closed too, it's okay", but I won't even check.

I'm just so scared lately of brain tumors 😭 on Monday I've learnt that i'm pregnant, and one girl from my hometown found out she had the worst brain tumor just after she had known about her pregnancy. I guess I'm scared of being in the same Situation...

[Jordan85]

looking through the hole really does sharpen my vision!

Well, there's the proof that everything is working as it should! A tumour would affect things from the inside and the pinhole wouldn't sharpen at all, so all you've got is what I've also got: completely normal variations in your vision You're exactly right about the glasses too - they're unnatural and it's literally impossible for opticians to craft THE perfect lens for your eye or anyone else's because if you were to take a microscope and zoom right in on the surface of any human eye, you'll get bumps and abbrasions which affect how the light comes in. Some will have bumpier surfaces than others, some (like me) have developed astigmatisms over time and that's even harder to work with as well - and even if they could map a like-for-like lens on for the eye, it still will show up ghosting because the glass sits separate from the eye itself and won't be able to bounce the light at microsopic accuracy to make it go away completely.

^that is what I learned after at least 3 years of worrying about something that just turned out to be completely normal, it's just not that many people talk about it for some reason! And congratulations by the way! That's amazing news!

[Lucidite1]

Well, there's the proof that everything is working as it should! A tumour would affect things from the inside and the pinhole wouldn't sharpen at all, so all you've got is what I've also got: completely normal variations in your vision You're exactly right about the glasses too - they're unnatural and it's literally impossible for opticians to craft THE perfect lens for your eye or anyone else's because if you were to take a microscope and zoom right in on the surface of any human eye, you'll get bumps and abbrasions which affect how the light comes in. Some will have bumpier surfaces than others, some (like me) have developed astigmatisms over time and that's even harder to work with as well - and even if they could map a like-for-like lens on for the eye, it still will show up ghosting because the glass sits separate from the eye itself and won't be able to bounce the light at microsopic accuracy to make it go away completely.

^that is what I learned after at least 3 years of worrying about something that just turned out to be completely normal, it's just not that many people talk about it for some reason! And congratulations by the way! That's amazing news!

Thank you! ❤
But just to be clear as it's what worries me The most - your ghosting was also there while looking with one eye only 100% of the time? Or like me, in some cases it was worse while looking with two eyes? Or you never checked? I just wish I never had gone on reddit to read about it

[Jordan85]

I get it in both eyes, I think my right eye is a bit better than the left - it ghosts less and it creates the ghosting "rays" out the bottom and to the right, whereas the left is more like an all round starburst type of ghosting. When combined/viewing things with both eyes it gets really ghosty! So it sounds pretty much exactly like what you're getting.

[ErinKC]

I didn't even know this was a thing. This has always happened to me and it never even occurred to me that it wasn't normal. I've always had normal eye exams.