What It Really Means When You Can't Focus Your Vision

Do you ever have trouble focusing your vision? It could be a sign of a serious eye problem. You might have other symptoms with it. Difficulty focusing your vision can be troublesome if you're working on your computer or driving a vehicle. You might need to take a break until focus comes back, which is annoying and inconvenient. What could be the cause of an inability to focus your vision?

When your eyes are healthy, they naturally focus on things automatically, per the College of Optometrists in Vision Development. Your eyes change focus quickly when moving your eyes to look at something far away, then close up, allowing you to see things clearly no matter where you look. If you're having problems focusing on things far away, close up, or at any distance, you might have a vision problem.

According to the Better Health Channel, problems focusing your eyes are called refractive errors and are very common. Trouble focusing could be caused by anything from farsightedness to astigmatism.

Make an appointment with your eye doctor to get checked out. You may need prescription glasses or contacts or other treatments. In the meantime, look at your symptoms to see what could be causing your trouble focusing.

If you work on a computer staring at a screen all day or drive for work, eye strain can be annoying. The Mayo Clinic explains that symptoms of eye strain range from feeling like you can't keep your eyes open to sore and itchy eyes. So take eye breaks throughout the day, keep the lights low, adjust your screen brightness, and keep your monitor about an arm's length away at or below eye level. These changes should reduce your symptoms of eye strain. See your eye doctor if they don't help.

Suppose you only experience trouble focusing your eyes at night. In that case, it could be because you have a mild eyesight problem, such as being nearsighted, farsighted, or having astigmatism (via Better Health Channel). You may not notice during the day because your eyes compensate for the minor problem, but your eyes can be fatigued at night. Getting a prescription and wearing your glasses or contacts should correct this problem.

According to the Vision Center, other causes of focusing problems could be high blood pressure, causing the lenses in your eyes to swell; pink eye, which can be a bacterial or viral infection; or cataracts. You could also have an injury to your eye. If you have blurry vision in one eye, you could be having a stroke even if it returns to normal: Seek emergency medical attention if you experience this.