How Your Eyes Work

Blurry vision can be attributed to several causes, and they stem from how the eye works and how it has developed. The eye is a tiny organ that measures about an inch long and weighs about 1/4 of an ounce. It is part of a complex system that translates light into images. Light enters your eye through the cornea and into the pupil. The pupil is the black hole in the middle of the iris, which is the colored part of the eye. Behind the iris is the eye’s natural lens. It focuses the light onto the retina. The retina is the inside layer at the back of the eye, and contains cells that are sensitive to light. The image is then converted into electrical impulses that are sent through the optic nerve at the back of the eye to the brain.

All of this happens continuously and instantly to give you clear vision from near to far distances. But eyes don’t always work perfectly. Their exact size and shape affect how well they focus light. These differences can cause some people to have refractive errors such as myopia (nearsightedness), hyperopia (farsightedness), or astigmatism. In addition, over time, everyone loses the ability to focus on near objects. This is a refractive condition known as presbyopia, or blurry near vision, and is the first stage or dysfunctional lens syndrome (DLS). If uncorrected, DLS will progress. DLS stage 3 is a cataract.