Myopia, often called short-sightedness, is when far-away things look blurry for you. It’s a pretty common eye condition and glasses and contact lenses can be used to help you see the distance clearly. However, once you have myopia, the change in your eyes is permanent. What’s more, these changes can make you prone to other eye issues, especially if the level of short-sightedness is higher.
Therefore, it’s important to take steps to prevent myopia from worsening.
What Does Myopia Control Do?
Having short-sightedness typically means that the eyeball has grown longer than its’ ideal size. This change in eyeball makes it harder to focus on distance objects. Without any myopia control intervention, children’s shortsightedness can change significantly and quickly. This is because their bodies, including their eyeballs are still growing. Most of the interventions and strategies we use in myopia control are targeted to limit the elongation of their eyeballs without interfering with their natural development. Although most of the myopia control researches are done for children, adults can also benefit from these interventions if their short-sightedness continues to worsen.
There are a few myopia control interventions that have been proven effective in stopping myopia from getting worse:
- Orthokeratology (Sleep lenses) ⭐⭐⭐⭐These customised designed contact lenses are worn during sleep to correct your vision overnight. You can enjoy clear vision without any glasses or contact lenses during the day. They can significantly slow down myopia progression. Check out our OrthoK clinic and read more in our blogs: Is Orthok good for my children? How does it work?
- Multifocal soft contact lenses:⭐⭐⭐⭐These contact lenses are to be worn during the day to correct vision and has also shown to significantly slow down myopia progression.
- Myopia control spectacle glasses: ⭐⭐⭐⭐These glasses have special design incorporated to slow down myopia progression significantly. They are used in the same way as your usual spectacle glasses.
- Atropine eye drops: ⭐⭐⭐ Low concentration Atropine eye drop has been shown to have moderate effect in slowing down myopia progression. It is normally used in conjunction with other treatments.
- Multifocal glasses:⭐⭐ These glasses have a special read part to relax eyes during reading. While it only demonstrates moderate effect in slowing down myopia progression, it might be a better option for kids with eye teaming issues.
Even though these tools are great, it’s also essential to think about lifestyle factors to get the best results in slowing down near-sightedness.
Can you control myopia naturally?
Absolutely! There are many ways to slow down myopia progression by changing some of your daily habits. We often recommend them as part of your myopia control strategy. The top tips include:
- Spend Time Outdoors.
- Take Eye Breaks.
- Maintain Proper Posture and Distance During Near Tasks.
- Eat a Balanced Diet.
Read our blog What is Myopia and How Can We Manage It? for more details.
When should you start myopia control?
We recommend commencing some sort of myopia control intervention as soon as myopia is first detected for all children. For some children, if they have multiple risk factors for developing myopia, we would discuss the natural interventions even before they become short-sighted.
Conclusion:
Myopia control is important for our vision and eye health. Fortunately, there are many different tools and natural ways for us to do so. 👓🌳 Book in for a myopia control appointment with one of our experienced optometrists to discuss what is the best plan for you or your child.