Myopia Management
What is Myopia?
Myopia is the clinical name for short sightedness. If your child is becoming myopic, they may notice that distant objects start to look out of focus and may struggle to see the board clearly in school, or see writing on the TV at home.
Myopia tends to increase while the body and the eye are still growing, the changes in prescription usually slow in the late teens or early twenties.
What Causes Myopia?
Myopia is more common when you:
- Have parents who are myopic
- Are of East Asian ethnic origin
- Spend limited time outside and tend to spend more time on smartphones, tablets, computers, or doing other concentrated near tasks.
A web questionnaire is available at myopiacare.org which takes into consideration, age, current spectacle prescription, family history and other factors to assess the risk of progressive myopia.
What Problems Can Myopia Cause?
Currently 1 in 3 people in the UK are affected by myopia, but this is increasing, indeed it is estimated that half the world’s population will be myopic by 2050. The earlier your child becomes myopic, the higher the level of myopia can become, which increases the risk to eye health.
Unfortunately, myopia can give rise to the following eye conditions:
Glaucoma
A potentially blinding disease, often caused by raised fluid pressure in the eye
Retinal Detachment
where the retina can stretch and tear as the eye grows too quickly, causing it to separate from the back of the eye. This can lead to loss of vision if not detected early.
Myopic Macular Degeneration
a disease causing loss of central detailed vision as in age-related macular degeneration. This is caused by the eyeball becoming too stretched and elongated in high myopia.
What can be done to slow down the increase in myopia?
Ensuring that your child regularly spends time playing outside and moderates their usage of smartphones and computers, may reduce the risk of becoming more myopic.
This can include the 20-20-20 rule, which means looking away from close tasks every 20 minutes for 20 seconds, whilst looking at objects 20 feet (6 metres) away from you.
Myopia Control and Management
At Partridge Opticians, we want the best for your child and offer both MiYOSMART spectacle lenses and MiSight 1Day contact lenses.
MiYOSMART spectacles
MiYOSMART spectacle lenses from Hoya use cutting edge technology to manage the development of myopia. They are clinically proven in a 2 year trial to reduce the progression of myopia by an average of 60%, and are worn as a child’s main pair of glasses. The lenses use Hoya’s award winning D.I.M.S (Defocus Incorporated Multiple Segments) technology. These lenses are available in clear, tinted or photochromic form
MiSight contact lenses
MiSight 1 day contact lenses by Coopervision, are daily disposable soft lenses that are worn for up to 10 hours each day. A 3 year clinical trial showed that children aged 8-12 years using MiSIght 1 day lenses had their myopia progression slowed by 59%on average compared to those children using standard single vision contact lenses.
