The
Essential
Guide to
Laser Eye
Surgery
PART 2: Reading your prescription
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Normal sight: Distance vision is good because
focusing is exactly on the retina
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Normal eye Refractive errors

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Refractive errors = needing glasses
• The effect of a refractive error is an image that falls somewhere
other than exactly on the retina at the back of your eyes.
Short sight

What does a prescription look like?
Example:
-3.00/-1.00 x 180
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A prescription has 3 basic numbers
Sphere (SPH) Cylinder (CYL) Axis
-3.00 -1.00 180
1 2 3
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A prescription has 3 basic numbers
1 Sphere (SPH) Cylinder (CYL) Axis
-3.00 -1.00 180
1 2 3
1. The basic correction, written as Sphere or SPH (because we correct it
with a spherical lens). The higher this first number, the worse the vision.
A minus means short sight and plus means long sight
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2
A prescription has 3 basic numbers
Sphere (SPH) Cylinder (CYL) Axis
-3.00 -1.00 180
1 2 3
2. The amount of extra distortion from astigmatism, on top of the basic
blurring -written as Cylinder or CYL because we use a so-called
’cylindrical‘ lens to fix it.
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A prescription has 3 basic numbers
Sphere (SPH) Cylinder (CYL) Axis
3
-3.00 -1.00 180
1 2 3
3. The precise angle this cylinder lens should be tilted to give the sharpest
vision, written as Axis (between one degree and 180 degrees – 180 is
horizontal and 90 vertical).
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So what kind is this?
Example:
-3.00/-1.00 x 180
• This prescription is for short sight because it has a MINUS number first
(-3.00)
• There is a small amount of astigmatism because there is a second
number (-1.00)
• If there is no astigmatism, the second (and third) numbers are missing
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Presbyopia (ageing eyes)
•if you also require help
for reading, there will
be a FOURTH number
on your prescription
•this is found at the
end under ADD
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4
Reading addition
Example:
Add
-3.00/-1.00 x 180 +2.00
• This reading part is called an ADD because it is in addition to your
distance prescription
• You can have this add built in to bifocal or varifocal glasses, or wear two
separate pairs, one for distance and one for reading
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This means YOU!
EVERYONE will need to wear glasses in their
lifetime, either for distance or reading or both!

Laser eye surgery
• All glasses problems can now
be treated with laser eye
surgery
• Biggest advances have been in
treating near vision for age
related presbyopia
• Reading correction is available
from FOCUS Laser Vision
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0845 5000 500
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