What is Myopia?

Myopia, also known as short-sightedness, is blurry vision in the long distance and usually starts in childhood, being more common in children who have myopic parents.

It starts at a young age and myopia occurs when the person’s eyeball begins to elongate or their cornea is too curved. When this happens, it will prevent light from focusing on the retina and hence blur their distance vision.

Myopia tends to get worse as we get older, and the younger it starts, the worse it may get.

Myopia is dramatically on the rise around the world and in the year 2000 it affected 27% of the population of Western Europe, but by 2020 it had risen to 37%.

Should I be Concerned?

By 2050 50% of the population will be myopic.

Short-sightedness is connected with a number of more serious eye problems in later life, such as retinal detachment, cataract, glaucoma and macula disease and it can affect the quality of their life.

As myopia increases, the risk of developing these eye problems increases.

Acting early and managing myopia progression will dramatically reduce the risk of eye diseases.

What can we do to help?

We are committed to providing the best care for your children’s eyes, so we will suggest solutions to manage myopia and visual stress if we think it may be helpful.

All our clinical staff have been accredited for myopia management and are able to offer advice on how to manage myopia progression and discuss all the available suitable options with you and your child during their appointment and recommend the best solution for your child.

Treatment Options

Solutions for myopia control are very simple and readily available.

Contact Lenses

There are several types of new contact lenses that can now slow down the progression of short-sightedness in children. These have proven to reduce the severity of myopia by 50%.

.Spectacle Lenses

Spectacle lenses are also available to help reduce myopia in children. We can offer Stellest and MiYOSMART lenses for myopic treatment.

What can you do to help?

• Have regular eye tests
• Spending more time outdoors, 14 hours per week, has been shown to reduce chances of becoming myopic.
• Act as soon as possible
• Speak to our clinical staff
• Call us to book a free myopia consultation
• More time spent on close work increases the chance of myopia.
• Use the 20-20 rule- for every 20 minutes on the near tasks, take a 20 second break and look into the distance 20 feet (6 meters) away.

How do I know if my child is myopic?

Signs to look out for are:

• Are they struggling to see the board at school?
• Are they complaining of tiredness or eye strain?
• Are they complaining of headaches?
• Are they squinting when looking in the distance?
• Are they sitting close to the TV?
• Excessive rubbing of their eyes

Should I book a Myopic Assessment?

If any of the points below apply to you, if you are not sure, or want peace of mind and want to take the best possible care of your children’s eyes, then call us to book a free myopia consultation and we can do a free assessment to determine the risk of myopia.

• Is your child already myopic?
• Is your child under 16 years old?
• Is your child a student in full-time education?
• Does your child spend less than 1.5 hours outside every day?
• Does your child spend more than 2 hours reading or using a handheld device (outside of school hours)?
• Are any of the parents myopic (it can still affect 1 in 4 people if none of the parents are myopic)?

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