Ways to stop kid's myopia (short-sightedness)?

[Leo12345]

Hi!

My daughter is now 7 years old.

1 year ago she was diagnosed with myopia about 0.5 each eye.
Now we came for the test and she already has -2.0

I myself have had myopia since the age of 10 and it progressed from about -1.5 to -5.0 (I am 41 now). When I was child, I did different exercises for the eyes and even attended special course several times a week: I was reading my book for one hour and the nurse would change lenses in my glasses once in 5 minutes (lences from +5 to -5 in steps of 1 dioptre).

Now, I am afraid the myopia of my daughter can progress very fast.
Opticians say she just needs to change glasses - that's it, they even did not want to give me referral to the GP. They say it is 'normal' etc. - they absolutely don't care, just humiliating.

And I am absolutely sure that if I come to our GP, he will say the same: don't worry, use glasses, come for the eye test next year.

But I do worry, because once myopia reaches high values it may lead to retina detachment. And as far as I know, myopia can never 'improve', you can only slow it down. Because myopia is caused by the eye-ball growth, it can never contract back.

If each year it will worsen 1.5 dioptres (like this year), in 10 years she will develop -17.0!

We are now in our family trying to put strict control on how our daughter reads (and she loves reading and wants to read a lot). I am considering buying very large computer monitor, so she will be able to read e-books from 2 meter distance (when the eye is not focused on close objects, the accomodation muscle is not strained and the eye-ball growth does not occur).

Are there any private clinics in Greater London which specialise on stopping myopia progress with children?

Do you have similar problem with your kids? What do you do? Just each time wait for another year to visit the optician and see the vision worsened by another 2 dioptres?

I'm a -6.5 and -4.5 with differing astigmatisims too.
I started wearing glasses at age 12. The shortsightedness was possibly puberty related.
Anyway, my vision has yet to stabilise and I'm 34. I get glasses at least very 9 months.

Can I ask what people think about ortho-k for children? Some of the papers do seem quite promising.

ObfusKate I was told by my optician that there is a large "cluster" of people with about -3 to -5, and then another smaller "cluster" of people around the -9/-10 mark (which is where I am as well).

He told me the -9/-10 people tend to have unusually large eyeballs. Not really something you can do much about.

OhYouBadBadKitten I didn't have ortho-k but did have rigid contact lenses from about age 10 or 11. I think ortho-k is similarly a rigid contact lens, but larger and specially shaped? Rigid lenses are not something I would wish on any child, they were really uncomfortable, came out a lot, and I seemed to get grit in my eye all the time. And it made no difference at all to my sight as far as I can tell (i.e. it continued to deteriorate during my teens and then stopped).

That sounds uncomfy :( were they overnight wear only?

I don't know what confirmation bias is - he showed me a graph which showed how eyesight is distributed across the population, there was a peak at -3 to -5 and a smaller peak at -9 to -10. So unless he's made up the graph... He didn't give me any evidence for his large eyeballs explanation but I have been told by other opticians in the past that I have unusually large eyeballs (what an attribute to have eh!)

Yes DH laughs at me if I try to read without glasses - I have to hold the book about 2 inches away. I know a couple of other people with similar sight so we swap stories of being mole like!

The eye-ball elongates when doing close work/reading.

The lens changes not the entire eye.

Not sure what you are reading or from where but eyes do not grow at the rate you are thinking of.

Have a look at a baby, now look at an adult, does the adult have eyes 17 x bigger than the baby? By about the age of 3 your eyes are fully grown.

If you think your dd is going to be bothered in the future start saving for laser eye surgery, it can't be done on a child but it is permanent. But she might not care and like wearing glasses.

Ah yes I get it - like how when I'm TTCing or pregnant, everyone in the world seems to be pregnant!

DH (who is an optometrist) says current research suggests progression of myopia is down to (a) genetics (b) exposure to daylight (more time outside = slower myopic progression). Myopia is normal- it's not a reason to refer.

My Optician said very similar. Poor DD has inherited my family's penchant for myopic eyes (I'm -7.5, Dad was -10, brother was -7, she is -3 at 8yo). He talked about studies comparing Aussie eyes with British eyes (similar gene pool) which showed that lots of daylight as a child = lesser degree of myopia - also suggested always reading/writing with a bright light etc ( so my reading under the bed covers with my torch as a child probably didn't help )

I'm another one with fairly bad myopia which started when I was 7 or 8, it doesn't deteriorate the same year on year. I think my prescription is around minus 8 dioptres?
I'm now almost 50 and it hasn't really changed for many years now, I would say very minor changes since the age of 16, which is when I was allowed to have contact lenses. I have astigmatism, whilst I'm notsure what that means exactly, it does mean I can't have soft lenses, only the hard/gas permeable type. with my glasses, I can just about bear them by having the thinnest lenses they do or put it another way, basically opting for the most expensive lenses available.

please don't restrict her reading, I don't believe it will make a difference to the deterioration or where her prescription finally settles. no one else in my family is as shortsighted as me, I think it's just the luck of the draw.

my vision is terrible but in my case the myopia isn't terribly bad (-3.5 ish) but the astigmatism is the problem. I can't even get contact lenses that fit - even the toric ones just pop off my eyes because they're not the right shape

My 12 year old has had Ortho k lenses since the beginning of the year. She has had no progression in her myopia, at her age you would typically expect her prescription to increase. I'll pm you Leo.

My 10 year old is shortsighted and is -3.75 in both eyes. We are extremely worried too. Her previous prescription was -2.5 and she was not even due for a checkup until next month or so. But since she kept complaining, we went to Specsavers before school started in september and we were shocked by the increase.
She had normal eyesight in year 3 and suddenly by year 4 it was -1.5. Poor thing started doing badly in school and we had had to press for an early unscheduled appointment to get her prescription. The sudden jumps worry us. Thankfully this time around we have been given another appointment within 3 months.
DH and my parents all think its due to too much TV, reading etc and the blame falls on me for not curtailing them. I love reading too and I said that cutting down on TV/Computer is all doable but am not going to restrict reading. Its comforting to know there are others with the same problem. What are Ortho-K lenses?

My eye-sight galloped as a child, once I started wearing glasses too. I could not see the board at school but no-one would believe me, as I had only just got my glasses.

My Ds,9, has just started wearing them too. Naturally, I am worried as he is in them so much younger than I was. So far though, it seems to be fairly slow progression. I knew his eye sight was a bit marginal at age 5. I have researched Ortho-k lenses which are like the old style gas permeable contact lenses. These are worn at night only and it somehow 'moulds' the eye so that you do not need to wear glasses during the day. They are supposed to control short-sight progression in children to an extent, but they are very new and the jury is still out, I think.

When I first started wearing lenses at 16 or so, I wore gas perms (although obviously not ortho k) and I had no further progression. I got on well with them and I preferred them to 'soft' lenses.

My daughters gets worse with every eye test, we were told it will level out at around 13/14, she's been wearing glasses since she was 5 and is now almost 11. We trust what the optician says, last time we went she was told to read in the evenings with her old glasses to help exercise her eyes and it may stop them getting much worse.

I'm an Optician, and I don't know where to start with this. You are being beyond ridiculous. And I can absolutely assure you we are not in the business of giving out a different RX to 'make money'

Ortho-K lenses are essentially gas permeable contact lenses that are worn at night and which reshape the eye enough to correct the vision during the day. Because they are worn when your eye is closed

Sorry posted too soon! Because they are worn at night they move around on the eye less and so are less irritating. There is some evidence they arrest myopia, which is why our optician recommended them for DD1 - she was minus 4 aged 8 and probably following the same path as me (-9/-11). Her prescription hasn't changed since (she is nearly 11) but the big difference for me has been the fact that she isn't hampered by glasses and can play sport and all
sorts of things I couldn't do at the same age - it's really amazing. They do cost a bloody fortune however and she will need to stick with them until she is an adult and her eyes have matured. So I am not considering them for DD2 yet as she has been stable at about -1 for two years and only needs glasses for reading the whiteboard in class.

At 7, your daughter's optic nerve and its relationship with the brain is not fully developed. If she does not wear properly fitted and calibrated glasses as often as possible when they are needed, it may never develop fully and then she would always have less than perfect vision, even while wearing glasses.

Neither -2 nor -5 as a prescription is a huge cause for concern. My 8 year old's prescription isn't far off -2 and mine isn't far off -5 (in my bad eye, the other reaches the dizzying heights of -1.75). We both have 20/20 vision or better while wearing glasses - this is the important thing if you want to do anything like drive a car in later life.

Two opticians have also told me that reading or close work has no affect on the eyesight, even in poor light. So please don't stop her reading.