myopia

tave

Hi, we found out a few days ago that our daughter (7) has myopia (short sighted) it was a shock as she never complained or seem to struggle. We were told she needs glasses all time, it will most likely get worse with age&nothing can be done until she can have laser treatment at 21. I found it but hard to accept that nothing can be done to help slow the progress. Having been on net for 3days i have found lots of people in similar/same situation who like myself felt more could be done to help. They attended VISION HEALTH clinics& BEHAVIOURAL/DEVELOPMENTAL OPTOMETRISTS, who claim to help not cure vision problems&give people glasses free time which is all my little girl wants for her dancing. These all seem be in Uk&USA. can anyone help or point me in right direction to any of these in Dublin or surrounding areas? Ill be so grateful.

tave...

CelticRambler

My mother found out that I was short-sighted when I was ten and having a health-check for a visa. I could just about read the huge A at the top of the chart ... but as far as I was concerned, there was nothing to complain about and there's precious little "struggling" for children at that age. Ordinary short-sightedness is mostly due to the shape of the eye and at this stage, her eye will be almost fully developed so there is nothing much that will change. Beware of the promises made by vision clinics - the advantage for children of being "glasses free" is neglible. There's nothing to stop her dancing or doing other vigourous activities while wearing glasses, and she can take them off if she needs to!

tave

Hi Celtic rambler thanks so much for your reply. In your experience do you think her vision wont get any worse? The optician said she should wear glasses all the time even dancing but this is the only time she really doesn't want to as none of the other girls wear glasses&she doesn't want to be different&i can totally understand that&don't want to force her but not sure if that will do more damage, just don't know what to do..

thanks...

CelticRambler

Whether it'll get worse or not is really for the optician to say, but any child I've ever known with shortsightedness has it forever (unless they go for laser treatment) My own eyesight deteriorated pretty quickly, but has stayed at that (bad) level without much change since. My parents were lucky in that we were just about to leave the country, so I was told that I could carry on without glasses till we left, but had to wear them once I got off the 'plane. By the time I came back to Ireland, I was used to it.

These days, I'd say it'd be worth spending more on a decent "cool" pair of children's specs than any psychological tricks. The one thing that doesn't seem to have changed in three decades is that every other child in the class wants to try on their friends glasses. :cool:

As for wearing them when dancing ... it depends on what kind of dancing. I've done (and still do) set and other formation dancing for fun and performance/competition. While it doesn't really make any difference whether you wear them or not when you're just messing about, if you're competing or performing in a group, you need to be able to see the eyes and faces of your team-mates to pick up on tiny cues (like when you or your partner/contrapartner suddenly can't remember if you should be going left or right, arms up or down, etc)

If she was my daughter, I'd tell her she had no choice in whether or not to wear them, but give her a say in exactly what pair was bought. Better still, see if you can get a two-for-one offer on frames from one of the big chains, so she can have her "school" specs and a different pair for dancing.

tave

Thanks so much xx

blackeyedpeat

The evidence shows children.
Who spend more than 15 hours/week outside are less likely to be myopic & progress least. 1 hour a day Mon to Fri leaves 5 hours Sat & Sun.
Who spend less than 45 hours doing close work again are less likely to become myopic or progress. 6 hours school & 1 Hour homework x5 becomes 45 hours. This is before a book, tv, tablet,laptop,phone are used for recreation.
The evidence show little support for any methods of myopia prevention and definitely not for curing it.
Bifocals(some limited positive evidence)) Varifocals, Prisms, Undercorrection, Contact Lenses have all had their day.
The current trend is modern design myopia control contact lenses Orthoketatology(An older concept) is enjoying something of a resurgence (these are not the same thing)

tave

Thanks for your response, i know im prob just clutching at straws its just reading all different peoples blogs just gives ne bit of hope for ny daughter. I know it cant be cured without laser&that's fine but stopping the progression&maybe slightly improving her vision is just what in hoping to do. I know there's alot now with tv phones laptop etc but i am happy to say they do spend alot of time outdoors&i will defo make sure that just doesn't change if it will help.

thanks..

Mousewar

Yeah, I've read a lot of stuff suggesting that close work can be damaging for children's developing eyes. The eye is at rest when seeing in the distance and is working hard when seeing up close. To correct this, I've read that kids might be made to use reading glasses when doing close up work so that their eye isn't working so hard.
This is all unproven though I believe.
But yes, I am given to believe that the earlier a kid starts wearings corrective lenses the worse their sight tends to become by adulthood.

CelticRambler

You've got the wrong end of the stick there, Mousewar. Someone with myopia doesn't need glasses for close work - they're naturally able to see things close-up that "normal" people can't. Wearing glasses doesn't/won't change this. What they can't do is see things at a distance - like blackboards or movie screens (or the judges' faces in a feis!) There are only two ways of fixing this: move closer or wear glasses. Not wearing glasses is only making things more difficult for a child at a time when they need to see as much of what's going on as possible.

@tave You need to keep in mind that myopia is not a disease or a sign of bad parenting or anything else that you might have had control over. It's no more of a handicap than being born with red hair! It doesn't even count as a "health problem" on the majority of health check forms. BTW, don't get too fixated on laser treatment. Yes, it can help improve short-sightedness, but there's no guarantee that the person who has the treatment won't need to wear glasses for some other reason.

Mousewar

CelticRambler wrote: »

You've got the wrong end of the stick there, Mousewar. Someone with myopia doesn't need glasses for close work - they're naturally able to see things close-up that "normal" people can't. Wearing glasses doesn't/won't change this. What they can't do is see things at a distance - like blackboards or movie screens (or the judges' faces in a feis!) There are only two ways of fixing this: move closer or wear glasses. Not wearing glasses is only making things more difficult for a child at a time when they need to see as much of what's going on as possible.
.

No, I understand all that. I was describing a theory that close work strains the eye of young children leading to myopia and that the way to avoid that stress is to wear reading glasses as they make close work easier. I'm not saying they 'need' reading glasses but that the theory says that they ease the strain on an eye thus preventing myopia. I also added that this is an unproven theory.

CelticRambler

The misunderstanding (unproven theory) is the idea that the eye is under strain during close work. It's not. Eyeballs come in different shapes and there's normally no strain involved in using them. Some people have eyeballs that are more or less round than others, which makes them either short- or long-sighted. The "work" of the eye muscles is concentrated on changing the size of the pupil and the shape of the lens, not the shape of the eyeball. A short-sighted person has a natural ability to see up close (much more so than someone with a normal eye) and real trouble seeing things at a distance. It's the way they are, and the strain on their eyes comes from trying to see further than their eyes can cope with. For this reason, many short-sighted children have a preference for doing close work precisely because they don't have to strain their eyes.

As blackeyedpeat pointed out above, there have been numerous "solutions" proposed over the years but none of them have been particularly successful at fixing short-sightedness because, essentially, the eye is not broken. Corrective lenses (specs or contacts) are the one technique that has stood the test of time with no side-effects (apart from being called 'four-eyed' ... )

Mousewar

Yes but what causes them to elongate? There must be environmental factors at play here since the amount of myopia is so high today - seems hard to conclude it's just genetics. This theory says it's the strain caused by near work (which is a relatively recent development in mankind - at least the ratio of it). And that that strain while young causes the eye to elongate so it ends up suiting near work. But that of course makes far sight poorer.
Anyway as I said it's unproven but the OP was looking for info so it's there if he wants to look into it themselves.

CelticRambler

IF there's a significant increase in the incidence of myopia (and that's still a matter for debate, seeing as there are no reliable statistics going back more than a few decades, and in that time, the methodology for recording data has changed several times) then genetics may come into it: the more we "fix" inherited problems by intervention, the greater the number of offspring born with the defect.

However, where there is an argument for environmental factors, the number one candidate is light intensity. Outdoors, you need an eye with a wide focal range and a tiny pupil; indoors, you need a wider pupil to compensate for lower light levels, so focal range is lost. Because, relatively speaking, everything indoors is close by, the eye would prioritise short-sightedness over long-sightedness if the shape of the eyeball had to be adjusted to compensate. When we talk about "being outdoors" in this context (like for other health reasons) it means whole days at a time, not just an hour or two in the late afternoon.

Of course, none of this makes any difference to the OP's daughter now ... but it might help the OP realise there's little point in agonising over the situation.