Things You Need to Know About Myopia

In recent years, myopia, or nearsightedness, has emerged as a growing concern worldwide, particularly among children and young adults. With the prevalence of myopia on the rise, there is a growing interest in strategies for myopia control to mitigate its progression and preserve clear vision. This blog aims to explore the concept of myopia control, its importance, and various strategies that individuals can employ to manage and potentially slow down the progression of myopia.

What is myopia?

Myopia is a form of blurry vision for distance vision and people usually struggle to see far away. It occurs when the shape of eyeball is longer than it needs to be and that causes light rays to focus in front of the retina instead of directly on it.

Myopia often develops during childhood and tends to progress gradually until early adulthood when the eye's growth stabilizes.

Importance of Myopia Control: Unchecked progression of myopia can lead to various ocular complications, including an increased risk of developing sight-threatening conditions such as retinal detachment, glaucoma, and macular degeneration later in life. Additionally, higher degrees of myopia are associated with greater dependence on corrective lenses and an increased risk of vision impairment. Therefore, implementing strategies for myopia control early on is crucial for maintaining optimal eye health and preserving clear vision in the long term.

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What are we looking into at the moment?

Current major direction to study myopia is mostly based around axial length of the eye globe. Axial Length is the measurement of the length between the most anterior and posterior part of the eye globe, it can be done in optometry practices that has got optical biometry machine. (Head to our Megane Map and select “axial length” in the filter to find out more)

Recent research studies show there is a strong co-relation between increasing axial length of eye globe and myopia progressions, our aim to slow down myopia progression in children depends on whether we can stop axial length elongation. Management for myopia mentioned below are all based on this current theory of slowing down axial length elongation in order to slow down myopia progression.

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What can we do for children to manage the progression of myopia?

A myth buster to start with, often times we have parents or guardians that come into our practice and ask if their children’s myopia can be reverse, unfortunately the answer is, “No”. Under normal circumstance when a person acquires myopia, it can not be reverse; with the current technologies, the only thing we could do is to halt or slow down the progression of myopia.

Here are the mainstream methods nowadays for both optometrists and ophthalmologists to manage myopia for children once we have decided an intervention is needed:

1. Before starting any forms of treatment, I would always recommend parents to allow their children to have more outdoor activities during the daytime.

Clinical research has demonstrated a compelling link between myopia and outdoor activities, particularly in children. Numerous studies published have consistently shown that increased time spent outdoors is associated with a reduced risk of myopia development and progression. For instance, the "ROMIO" (Role of Outdoor Activity in Myopia Onset) study conducted in Taiwan revealed that children who spent more time outdoors had a lower incidence of myopia. Moreover, the groundbreaking "Sydney Myopia Study" found that each additional hour spent outdoors per week correlated with a significant decrease in the likelihood of developing myopia.

2. Frame, glasses and contact lenses

Vision correction is the most important part when managing myopia. As optometrists, we often recommend special types of frame glasses or soft contact lenses.

Glasses option - There are specialized glasses lens developed by different lens company that slows down myopia progression theoretically, these brands include Miyosmart made by HOYA, Myovision made by ZEISS and Stellest made by Essilor. This method can be used in conjunction with Atropine eye drops.

Soft contact lens option - MiSight Soft Contact Lens: this is a special contact lens made by Coopervision also has a good efficacy on slowing myopia progression. This method can be used in conjunction with Atropine eye drops.

3. Atropine Eye Drops

Atropine is a type of eye drops that will cause the dilation of a person’s eye. In clinical setting, low-dose atropine eye drops are generally used to manage myopia in conjunction with other management. It is currently recognized as one of the gold standard treatment for myopia progression.

4. Orthokeratology Lens

Orthokeratology Lens, also called OK Lens, has been more and more trending over the past decade, we often get asked about if the patients can try OK Lens. This is a type of hard contact lenses (unlike the ones we normally wear which are soft).

OK Lens is meant to be worn at night when sleeping for children that already have myopia to change the shape of their cornea (the most frontal part of the eye), they will need to take the lenses off in the morning.

During the day they do not wear vision correction glasses or contact lenses in most of the cases. This method can be used in conjunction with Atropine.

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What else?

Remember, myopia is a progressive eye condition and it has different rate of development depends on a lot of various reasons. It is recommended for children with no vision condition to have eye examination at least every 12 or 24 months. Children who have been diagnosed with myopia and is currently under management by optometrists should follow their review schedule to monitor any progressions.

More questions? Head to our Megane Map and select “Myopia Control” in the filter to find your nearest optometrists and book an appointment today.