Anybody suffering from eye-related problems, both physical and medical, knows that squinting, headaches and/or eyestrain is just not pleasant - not to mention that itching, scratching and dryness that occurs when you are not taking care of your eyes properly.

Firstly, let’s start with the basics - near-sightedness and far-sightedness; also known as myopia and hyperopia. In short, near-sightedness or myopia, is defined in lay-terms as things in the distance appear blurred and one can only see clearly (or relatively clearly) from up close. The first signs of this are squinting; eye strain and headaches. A simple fix is a pair of prescription glasses.

On the other hand, far-sightedness, or hyperopia is when people can see distant objects clearly but objects close up are blurred. If you are farsighted, you may have eye strain, headaches and often feel like you’re going squint when you work with things close up. For both ailments, prescription lenses that are made up accordingly to your specific needs and specific strengths, are the perfect solution.

Going one further, people - both farsighted and nearsighted - may also suffer from something called, ‘astigmatism’ which is basically when your cornea is curved (in the shape of a football rather than the shape of a basketball) and therefore, you see things blurred because your eye cannot focus clearly - no matter what the distance. This is often an inherited problem and not something that can be prevented. In addition, the strength of the curve may increase over time, so this needs to be tested at every optometrist visit. Again, prescription eyeglasses and prescription sunglasses, are a great solution! Your doctor may prescribe glasses with no sphere and only correction for the astigmatism which will be indicated in your prescription’s cylinder and axis.

Moving along, presbyopia is an eye problem most commonly occurs in the middle age years - around age 40, whereby one can see well at a distance, but cannot focus on objects close up. Where this is different to far-sightedness is that people require the ability to see close up and far away in one instance. Therefore, multifocal glasses are produced with an inner changing gradient of lens power that is produced according to the wearer’s specific needs. In all progressive glasses, the gradient begins with the wearers distance prescription and then moves down to the wearers maximum prescription needs. Therefore, the wearer will have one prescription at the top part of the lens and another further down, in the case of bifocal glasses; whereby with other multifocal spectacles such as trifocals, the lens will include three different strengths.

Other common problems include:

• Strabismus (Cross-eye) - when the eyes are not properly aligned or not straight. It is essential that this be diagnosed as early as possible because failure to treat this problem may result in complete loss of vision in that eye or lazy eye; as well as terrible embarrassment caused by the look of the eye. Treatment can include a variety of options, depending on the extent of the problem. Some of these include glasses, eye patches, drug treatments, eye exercises, botulinum toxin and in the worst cases, surgery.

• Amblyopia (Lazy Eye) is another common eye problem, mainly caused by the fact that another problem was not dealt with in childhood. If not dealt with early enough, such an eye can lead to complete blindness. The earlier treatment is started, the higher the rate of success and it must address both the condition itself and its cause. Because the brain and eye are not working as they should, the treatment trains the brain to use visual signals from the weak eye. Some methods used are: wearing an eye patch; using eye drops; wearing glasses; or, in the worst cases, surgery.

• Colorblindness, medically known as Color Vision Deficiency, is when people have difficulty identifying certain colors. Unfortunately, there really is no cure for this and the sufferers tend to just accept it and live out their lives as normal.

• Blindness - according to experts, the leading cause of blindness is a vitamin A deficiency, however, complications from premature births are also on the list - such as congenital cataracts, retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) and so on.

In short, although they are not suitable for the solution of every eye problem, eyeglasses remain one of the top solutions for the symptoms of eye problems worldwide and when told to buy optical glasses, like bifocal glasses, patients should sit down immediately with their updated eyeglasses prescription and find the trendiest pair of online eyeglasses available for them.