Why Does My Child's Nearsightedness Need to Be Managed?
Myopia significantly increases the risk of developing sight-threatening eye diseases later in life, such as cataracts, glaucoma, retinal detachment and macular degeneration. The higher your child’s myopia, the greater the risk.
Although eyeglasses and standard contact lenses can correct a person’s vision, they do not treat the underlying cause of myopia or slow its progression. This is where myopia management comes in.
If you’re concerned about your child’s long-term eye health and vision, contact Forsight Vision today. We can help.
What is Myopia Management?
Myopia management is an area of eye care that uses various tools and treatments to prevent or slow your child's myopia progression. Depending upon your child's specific needs, our doctors will be able to prescribe management options that can help your child maintain better vision for longer.
We specialize in myopia treatment to slow progression of nearsightedness using any of the following methods:
The Importance of Myopia Control
Myopia, also known as nearsightedness, occurs when the eye begins to elongate as your child grows, getting continuously longer until around 18 to 22 years old. As a result, your child begins to have a harder time seeing objects far away, and may require getting closer to objects or squinting to see them more clearly.
In the past, there was no treatment or prevention for myopia. However, there are now a number of different treatment options to help slow down or stop myopia, so your child doesn’t become more nearsighted as they get older.
This is immediately important simply from the standpoint of quality of life. The more you can’t see without your glasses on, the more dependent you are needing the glasses to see the world around you.
In the long term, it’s also important because myopia can lead to an increased risk of cataracts, retinal detachments, glaucoma, maculopathy, and other major eye diseases. Risk of developing these conditions grows as your child’s myopia worsens.
Myopia Control For Everyone
At our eye care practice, our main goal is to help you and your family have the best long-term vision and eye health. That’s another reason why we offer many myopia control options. We offer different types to fit different budgets!
Especially for younger children, atropine drops are an affordable and effective first step. Once your child has gotten a little older, they may step into ortho-k or other specialty contact lenses as they get older. This often happens around junior high, when kids may want to come into their own and reinvent themselves. Ortho-k gives them the opportunity to say goodbye to their glasses and continue slowing or preventing progression of their myopia.
For more information on myopia control, come visit us or give us a call at today!
Myopia Management Q&A with Dr. Cohan
Back to School: Myopia can affect academic performance
Can you walk us through what parents should be thinking about as their kids return to school?
What should parents be concerned about as their children return to school? While blue light rightfully gets a lot of coverage in the media, Dr. Cohan prefers to emphasize that the real danger posed by screens is the increased focusing demand on the eyes that comes with increased screen time, which can result in worsening myopia (nearsightedness)
When trying to stop or slow your child’s myopia, it’s always better to be proactive than reactive. Though children are sometimes resistant to instructions from their parents for many reasons, Dr. Cohan finds that children listen quite well to an eye doctor when they give instructions on how to keep their eyes healthy.
The instructions our eye doctor gives to his pediatric eye care patients are to take some kind of break from their screens every 20 minutes to half an hour. This allows their eyes to rest and reset before returning back to the rigors of watching digital screens.
When is the right time to start Myopia Control?
Any time a child is myopic is a time to start. There really isn’t too soon. But there’s a lot of times the child can’t tell the parents they can’t see. They don’t know they can’t see until it’s noticed by a teacher or parent. A child’s nearsightedness can already be quite bad before it’s even detected, unless they’re coming in for regular eye exams.
Unlike many other practices that only offer one or two types, we offer pretty much every type of myopia control: atropine drops, Ortho-k contact lenses, soft peripheral defocus contact lenses, and more. To determine which will work best, we consider a number of factors, including the age of the child, their needs, and what’s going to be the most convenient for the parent.
What Parents Are Saying About Myopia Management
Myopia increases the risk of serious eye diseases
How Do I Know If My Child Needs Myopia Management?
If you are concerned about your child’s myopia, call Forsight Vision today. Our team of eye care professionals will help you understand more about your child's nearsightedness and will determine whether your child is a candidate for myopia management.
Take our myopia assessment online to find out whether your child could benefit from this life-changing treatment.
