Comment by amluto
2 years ago
> Fortunately, just a few minutes a day with glasses or contact lenses that correct for blur stops the progression of myopia [link], which is why early vision testing and vision correction are important to limit the development of myopia.
That’s the first time I’ve heard of that, so I clicked the link. It’s a fascinating, and rather distressing, study in chickens, that does not say what the article claims at all.
There is an actual, properly tested (in humans!) childhood intervention that is effective, though: low dose atropine. I’m surprised it wasn’t mentioned. https://www.aao.org/eyenet/article/how-to-use-low-dose-atrop...
In opposition to the other comments, I have worn glasses since an early age and my vision got progressively worse even after wearing glasses. I know many people in a similar situation. As far as I know that claim is not supported at all
Same here. And my ophthalmologist explained to me that the moment you start wearing glasses, your eyes stop making an effort to correct the blur (because the glasses are doing that for them) so the muscles involved in correcting vision become weaker overtime. According to him, the best course of action once myopia begins is to not wear glasses and try to correct it with other techniques.
It's interesting how we scientifically know that sarcopenia occurs after age 50-60 or so, but we assume that somehow the eye-related muscles get weaker rapidly at a very young age itself.
Did he give any hints on what the other techniques are?
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Except you don't know what your vision would be if you didn't have correction, so I'm not sure how that actually says anything
> I have worn glasses since an early age and my vision got progressively worse even after wearing glasses. I know many people in a similar situation.
That is normal and expected. I have never heard anyone claim that glasses prevent the progression of myopia. They obviously do not.
There is a theory going around that myopia is caused by insufficient exposure to sunlight, which seems highly plausible to me.
>I have never heard anyone claim that glasses prevent the progression of myopia.
The article seems to claim that:
>Fortunately, just a few minutes a day with glasses or contact lenses that correct for blur stops the progression of myopia, which is why early vision testing and vision correction are important to limit the development of myopia. Eye checks for children are mandatory in some countries, such as the U.K. and now China, as well as most U.S. states.
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What about people who live north of the Arctic Circle?
I have fairly mild nearsightedness and can corroborate, I've been wearing glasses for about 13 years or so and my sight has very slowly but certainly degraded in spite.
Corrective lenses definitely slow the degradation and improve daily quality of life, but unfortunately the rate of degradation does not reach zero.
> Corrective lenses definitely slow the degradation
And how do we know that? I mean, that an eye doctor would rather prescribe glasses than not, it's not surprising. The fact that they'd back up their choice by some "scientific" explanation, is only natural.
Let me offer the opposing view in the form of an example: I have been diagnosed with mild miopia (-0.5), and prescribed glasses. I did wear the glasses for a few months but at some point I lost them, and didn't go back for a replacement. Now about 20 years later, I have never again wear glasses or any other correction and I don't need them (I can read the small leters on the vision tests. I would not say that my vision is 100%, but I never need glasses to see the things in the distance). If anything, my vision improved without wearing correction!
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Same. Exactly as my optometrists predicted, too.
NIH seems to say it doesn't work:
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/low-dose-atrop...
What is the recommended method for correcting myopia? Is laser corrective surgery still popular?
Correcting yes, eye laser, however you still have risks about retinal detachment because your eye is too long.
The thing is everyone looking for is prevention now, because you don't want to have the retinal detachment risk.
Huh, interesting. Although I feel obligated to object:
> After the treatment period, and 6 months after treatment stopped, there were no significant differences between the groups in terms of changes in degree of myopia compared with baseline. Nor were there significant differences in axial length within the two groups when compared with baseline measurements.
This implies essentially nothing about the efficacy of atropine — it actually means “if there was an effect, then the study was underpowered for the size of the effect or otherwise failed to detect it.” One could quantify the degree to which the study actually suggests that the treatment didn’t work, but the authors did not do that.
I, too, can fail to detect a benefit to low-dose atropine. Hey, look, I just enrolled 0 subjects and didn’t confirm the effect. So it wasn’t “significant!” But I obviously showed nothing at all.
Looking at the actual summary in the linked paper’s results section, and doing no real math, it does look like it genuinely contradicts the idea that low-dose atropine is as effective as previous studies seem to suggest, which is interesting. But that’s not what the authors, or the NIH summary, wrote!
My 7 y/o is taking low dose atropine every night. It’s slowed the myopia progression for about a year now and she’s really great about taking the drops. I’m looking forward to when she’s old and responsible enough for the special contacts that that will also correct the issue.
I remember making some comments along these lines to my optometrist in my teenage years when I still had the spicy zest of youth and boundless curiosity for pursuit of knowledge. He grunted. That was the first time I realized what burn out was and I felt doomed. Also , my eye sight got worse from first diagnosis in my early preteen years to early adulthood so I concur with your point (aside: Chickens with contacts. God bless you chicken ladies. What will we think of next ? neuralink? Bomb guiding?)
> Bomb guiding?
That's pretty old-school considering that after WWII, seeding industrial areas in Germany with nuclear mines was being considered, and the plan had chickens supplying body heat to prevent the detonators from freezing over in winter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Peacock#Chicken-powered_n...
Try out RGP lens. These are the sort of contact lenses that you wear before sleep and take off the morning. It maintains the shape of your eye, providing sharper vision in the morning with just the naked eye. I wear it since I'm 11 years old and it has effectively stopped the progression of myopia.
Do you have other eye-wear for the day? My daughter had started with regular glasses for near-sightedness which we got quickly when we realized she had trouble seeing in school. This year we did a checkup and the optician recommended specialist glasses (MiyoSamrt) as my daughter had no experience with contacts. I am now wondering if she should try something like RGP at night, and then use her glasses for short-sightedness. I know some treatments can be additive and some other combinations are not recommended (like drops + glasses).
My optometrist said that this is only proven way to stop the progression of myopia. Sadly, I cannot wear these as I have cylinder
Hmmm interesting. I have an anecdote to share:
I've been suffering from presbyopia for some years (I'm 41 now, and it seemed to start getting pretty bad around 38 or so). My eyes also often feel dry, itchy, and half-closed. I have floaters in my left eye. If I open both of my eyes very wide, and cover only my left eye with my hand, the problem becomes much less severe.
When I went to an eye doctor, they used a drug, placed in eye drops, to force my pupils to dilate, which I gather is typical.
Not only did these drops provide fast-acting relief from the feelings of dryness and itchiness, but my vision also improved markedly for about a day and a half afterward.
I reported this to the doctor via a phone call, but they either didn't seem to believe me, or didn't seem to care.
I haven't found a solution yet, but I do wish that those drops were commercially available for me to use for experimentation.
There are a lot of different drops without needing the doc, have you tried them? I have similar problems and was told to use the off the shelf stuff and it has worked pretty good. The thicker the fluid, the better the results were. I use "HYLO-gel".
The doctor also warned to stay away from eye drops that has any sort of preservatives, it reacts with the tear fluid and gets almost like sand corns in the eyes.
Also, find a real eye doctor...
Atropine! From nightshade (belladonna) or mandrake. Coool. I’m waiting for eye dilation for cosmetic purposes to be cool again.
Wonder how they figured out it helped with myopia in kids…
It's based on understanding the (theorized) disease process and trying to prevent it. If the problem is that you're looking at nearby stuff too much (e.g. phone screens held less than a foot away from the eyes), then that means your eye muscles are contracting too much. Atropine paralyzed the eye muscles and forces them to look further away because nearby stuff would be blurry.
That's kinda putting the cart before the horse.
My kid's in a Steiner preschool and they start the day with two hours or so in outdoor play. That oughta do the trick. Plenty of far focus.
Can somewhat confirm. I always wore glasses. My brother on the other hand would often not wear them. His vision became worse. Mine improved (because I wore them at a slight distance from my eyes right on the tip of my nose).
Anecdotal but I’ve had the same -1.5 prescription since I was diagnosed with nearsightedness at 12. I’m 37 now, so 25 years of the same rx, I’d say that’s pretty consistent.
My myopia began at onset of puberty and got worse as I grew then stabilized late teens. I was told it was just an eyeball size thing.
I was diagnosed at like 6. In that time it's gone from -2 to -10, though it's mostly stabilised from my mid-20s.
In fact the time where it slowed down getting worse was coincidentally the time where my daily near work went from 2-3 hours to 8+ hours as I was doing it professionally and not just in my free time.
I was diagnosed around age 11, and my eyes have never had a stable prescription for more than two years.
I've given up hope on getting LASIK or similar surgery, and am now just starting to get age related farsighted as well. A few more years and I'll be needing bifocals :/
Just a tip: If you use computers much, don't just get one pair of bifocals, get a special pair specifically made for the distance you use the computer screen. Meassure the distance before ordering the glasses.
It's horrible to use bifocals on a computer screen, you can only see sharp on a small horizontal band. You have to tilt the head to see the rest.
I have the opposite of Myopia. Near-perfect distance vision, but increasingly struggle with reading things that are close. Never had this problem as a child but it's become gradually worse as an adult, since my mid 30s or so.
Now I have glasses with +1 ADD power that help greatly, and can comfortably read tiny fonts on my phone screen again.
Isn’t this to be expected?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presbyopia
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Counter-anecdote, my prescription has slid double digits since I was first diagnosed at about 7.
So you are sayind I should put chemicql compound in my children eyes for a decade, and when it does not work, you will lash at me for not doing that rigorously enough?
That isn't a great proposition. Think better.