Decoding Your Eye Prescription Is Now Easy

Regular eye examinations are an important part of ensuring that your eye health is maintained and that your vision is sharp At your eye examination, your doctor will check for any signs of eye disease. You may also be given a prescription if your vision needs to be corrected and you may have to use eyeglasses or contact lenses.

Though most of the times your eye doctor will tell you what the prescription means. However, not always do things go as planned and if your eye doctor does not tell you what the prescription means, then you can use this cheat code to decipher!

The simple answer to this is yes. They are hard to decipher because they contain an assortment of numbers and letter that can be confusing if you do not know what they mean. There are abbreviations which may have been used in your prescription, which actually explain a lot about your vision and eye condition.

ADD: additional lens power is needed to make it easier for you to read. This is usually seen on the prescriptions for reading glasses or the lower partition of bifocal or progressive lenses.

Axis: This is the number between 1 to 180. This indicates where the astigmatism appears on your eye.

BO, BI, BU, BD: They stand for base out, base in, base up, and base down. They tell the eyeglass manufacturer exactly where to position the prism on eyeglasses to correct double vision.

CYL: This stands for cylinder, or the amount of astigmatism in your eye. The cylinder and axis together help correct astigmatism.

DV: It is for distance vision. This number indicates whether you have nearsightedness or farsightedness.

NV: It stands for near vision and indicates how well someone can read or see up close. Doctors use a handheld card containing letters or numbers to determine this measurement.

NVO: This stands for near vision only, this is used for read-only lenses

OD: This means oculus dexter, or right eye

OU: This stands for oculus uterque, or both eyes

OS: This means oculus sinister, or your left eye

PD: This means pupillary distance. Monocular PD is the distance from your pupil to middle of your nose and binocular PD is the distance from one of your pupils to the other pupil.

Prism: This is used if you have double vision.

SPH: It means sphere or the power of the lens that will correct your eyesight.

In the prescription, sometimes you will find numerical, numbers and signs which may be confusing, unless you know what they mean.

If you see numbers with a plus (+) sign or with no sign, it means you are farsighted. However, if you see the numbers are marked with a minus sign (-), you are nearsighted.

Sometimes the number in your prescription can tell the eyeglass manufacturer how much correction is needed. This is measured in diopters. If your prescription reads -1.00, then it means your eyeglasses need 1 diopter of strength to corrected nearsightedness.