Myopia control treatments

[Superscientist]

I have a 6 year old who has recently had her annual eye test and in the last 12m has gone from slightly long sighted to slightly short sighted (+0.75 to -0.75). They were quite concerned with the 1.5 drop in a year and we have started her on myopia control glasses. My partner, his brother and both of our fathers have all had short-sightedness since childhood so it hasn't been overly surprising.

I'm just looking for experience of the glasses and whether it has slowed the short-sightedness down?
Also, if you had a ~6 year old with a similar prescription where did they end up as they approached adulthood. My partner is around -4 to -5 and the opticians said it possible that her prescription would be higher than this if left.

My DC used Stellest with excellent results, their myopia stopped progressing, unfortunately they started as mid teens so too late to reverse it. With yours being only 6 they have a good chance to stop completely and even possibly reverse it. Just make sure they wear the glasses all the time they don't sleep.

It doesn’t seem worth it tbh, it stops working as soon as the person stops using the correcting prescription, so my children would have to continue to fund themselves for the rest of their lives to reduce the slight risk of retinal detachment in old age. (This is what SpecSavers told me anyway)
Everyone on both sides of the family wear glasses, there’s no shame in it.

My understanding is the myopia cannot be reversed.

My daughter got myosmart lenses a few months ago so I don’t know how they will work with progression but fingers crossed.

Specsavers told me that my daughter would only need them until her eyes fully matured roughly age 18.

I'm more worried about eye health and vision rather than her wearing glasses to be honest. My parents, my in-laws, myself and my partner all wear glasses!

My FIL and dad both are pretty reliant on one "good" eye. My FIL recently had to have a cataract removed from his good eye and the risk of losing vision in that eye with the procedure was stressful.

We only get one set of eyes and I want to do the best by her.

From my understanding of how they work is by slowing down the growth of the eye. In children short /long sightedness is caused by the size of the eye. The glasses can slow the growth of the eye down. In most cases the eyes grow at a "normal" rate from their original larger size and the short sightedness stays static or slowly increases. I guess if they are introduced early enough and the growth is slowed sufficiently their could be minor reverse .... Say -1.0 dropping back to -0.75 but the short-sightedness will remain.

The optician said based on the size of her eyes at the moment she's probably going to have big eyes. Your eyes don't grow much beyond early 20s and short sightedness then tends to stabilise before you enter older age. Although my partner's eyes have continued to change throughout his 20s and 30s.

Thanks. We are working on getting her to wear them as much as possible. The only issue we do have is she's quite accident prone and we want to be careful with the glasses whilst she is getting used to wearing glasses and doing things that won't damage them. If we can get her through the next half term without a long list of injuries she will be wearing them full time. She's only had them a few days so she's not wearing them at break time in school at the moment but is the rest of the time.

DS is 7 and already -4, -3.25 and we've just started these too. We're also combining it with as much outdoor time as we can, aiming for 2 hours a day whenever possible. I think the evidence is good and DS has adjusted well to wearing them. There are also atropine drops if the glasses don't make enough of a difference.

Oh bless, has he had regular glasses before?
I hope they help him.

We are trying to be outdoors as much as the weather permits too.

My son was predicted to end up with a prescription of about -10 as an adult without them, and his eyes were deteriorating every three months. They have now been stable for 2 years, no change in prescription at all. We have been so pleased, really worth the cost for us.

Yes, IIRC he was stable around -2.5/-3 for 18 months and then between ages 6 and 7 it declined a lot.

My little girl has just started her stellest journey, she was 6 when she started with a prescription of -0.5 I thought that was alright but optician said myopia only really starts at the age of 6 so would progress rapidly if we did not use the stellest lenses as eyeball will still be growing for quite a long time yet.
she will be having her next checkup in November so hoping for no change . She wears them all the time and we try to get her outside as much as possible and limit screen time.

That's not correct, I think you may have misunderstood the optometrist.

Myopia control glasses are amazing - hopefully we'll have significantly fewer children with severe myopia in years to come and they'll also get cheaper.

It's really important that they do spend at least an hour outside every day - exposure to a certain wavelength of light not found in indoor lighting seems to be issue. Ensure device use is limited and held at least at arms length and for older chilldren follow the 20.20.20 rule.

So every 20 minutes look at something 20m away for 20 seconds.

That's really good, they have estimated -7 to -10 if we do nothing.
My partner is -4 to -5 and they estimate that the next generation can be double to previous.

It was really noticeable when he was doing the eye test that what she could see a year ago was so much better. She flew through the eye test and went quite quickly to tiny letters, this time she kept trying to wiggle closer.

We have the zeiss lens at the moment.

@jetlag92 thanks for the reminder about the 20:20:20 rule. I was going to mention that to her teacher.

Her TV use has increased over the last year. I had my second a year ago and developed severe fatigue and liver issues in pregnancy to the point I was hospitalised and could be left alone with her as I couldn't stay awake. I'm still struggling with the fatigue and need naps every day so there are times when it's some times the easy option when I am in need of a lie down/sleep.