Myopia is risky - who would want any child to develop long term eye health problems, with vision loss as older adults? We must manage myopia for children and teens
Shortsightedness runs in families but is also increasingly occurring for children whose parents have good vision. Sure thing that your genetics are a factor, but with less outdoor time and more near time, things are different for kids now, than a generation ago.
Best eyecare for children
Chances are if you’re reading this you aren’t the child at risk with myopia, but an adult with interest in caring for children. With myopia we need to start young to slow progression, so children need regular eye examinations too. Not just the brief screening they have at school age 5 and 11, but with an optometrist who takes the time to find out their risks of developing myopia. At CapitalEyes we adapt the visit to the child’s needs, without pushy sales targets.
First eye check by age 6
It’s sad when we see 11 year olds who are already moderately myopic. If only we’d had a chance to help slow their myopia changes from age 6, what a difference we can make. Treatments available have evidence of slowing the worsening of myopia by 60% - that’s huge!
If we can delay the onset of myopia the long term result is so much better - every year younger a child starts to develop myopia, research has shown, adds a 1D power increase to their final vision as an adult. So if you become myopic at 7, instead of age 10, then there is 3D extra myopia when you have stable vision in your later teens.
Protect from adult eye vision loss
We feel sad, because if we let myopia get away, long term we now know that we are setting up the next generation for more eye disease and visual loss, which could be avoided.
It’s well known that if we use sunscreen there is a short term benefit of stopping sunburn, but also a long term benefit of reducing skin cancer risk.
Managing myopia has a short term benefit of better vision and a lower prescription but long term we are protecting those eyes from risk of vision loss from eye conditions. These vision conditions cause vision loss include:
Retinal detachment
Myopic maculopathy
Glaucoma
While often referred to as “vision impairment”, the loss can be devastating for the person, and not necessarily “fixed”.
Every dioptre counts
Optical prescriptions are measured in units of “dioptres”. Every increased dioptre in a prescription means the eye length is longer and this increases the risks for conditions like retinal detachment, macula damage, glaucoma to name a few. The data has shown that every dioptre of myopia increases the risk of visual impairment by 30%.
We can slow myopia
The treatments for slowing myopia, or even before the myopia is established, include weak powered eye drops, and/or glasses and contact lenses with advanced peripheral optics that alter the image on the periphery of the retina. The children and teens we see tolerate these options really well - they love to see clearly, and also very much understand what it feels like when their vision is blurry, and don’t want it getting worse.
If the young person has low risk for progression to myopia, that is great, but we still need to encourage outdoor time - 2 hours a day is known to reduce the chances of developing myopia. And even uni students and young adults develop myopia - so outside time for everyone is very important.
A better future - if we manage myopia
Higher myopia for most people is avoidable, if when young, they have myopia treatments to slow the progression. It’s much more than just strong glasses, and “fixing” the problem with laser eye surgery in their 20s. The damage to the retina from the myopia eye lengthening is something to take very seriously. We want to care for our kids, and have the next generation be better than us!