Myopia - don't be short sighted about trying to control it - text accompanying Video 3

This text accompanies the YouTube video 3 on the @EthicalOptician channel I have set up to provide advice and information, to help you get better eyecare and eyewear. (Link: https://youtu.be/meo9ct3RYCw?feature=shared)

There is a myopia epidemic across the world. In late 2019, the World Health Organization released its first ever World Report on Vision, “It recognised that myopia is increasing globally at an alarming rate, with nearly five billion people or 50% of the world’s population predicted to be affected by the condition by the year 2050, including 10% with high myopia.

Increased levels of myopia are not just inconvenient for the person who is experiencing it, but also as myopia goes up your risk of a whole range of eye health issues go up. As millions of people around the world become myopic the global health burden is massively increased. The World Health Organisation are rightly very concerned about this and this has led to a boom in research into myopia control: i.e.Is there anything we can do to stop myopia going up and up? Spoiler alert there is(!) and lots of optometrists, like myself, do myopia control - which means we have children who usually have a history of myopia in the family and start becoming myopic themselves and we get them special contact lenses and glasses to try and keep the prescription down. We're having some real success with that and all the global research shows it works too.

If you are a myopic parent and your child starts to struggle to see the board and it is determined that they are short-sighted and need glasses for their myopia, then you should be told about myopia control now. There's no excuse for you not being told and if your optometrist doesn't tell you they should have told you. As well as special kinds of contact lens and glasses they can give you some advice around lifestyle for example there is some strong research evidence that shows that time spent outside is good at helping reduce the speed of development of myopia, so a couple of hours outside day is a good thing, not just for the eyes obviously.

Myopia means that your eye brings images into focus in front of the retina and therefore when the image is processed it is blurred - myopic eyes are relatively longer in length. This is particularly an issue for distance tasks, but depending on the degree of myopia/levels of astigmatism it can be an issue all distances  (like your computer), therefore making the term short-sighted rather ambiguous/unhelpful.

When people become myopic, most commonly as a child, it can be upsetting. Some children don't want to wear glasses or are worried about it and, of course it's the same for their parents too. I vividly remember being told I needed glasses at the age of 15 and being quite unhappy about it and my prescription started around minus 0.75 /  minus 1.00 and now it is over minus 4.00. My prescription is not a big inconvenience at that level, but I am, as a consequence, at risk of a whole variety of high health conditions, for example retinal detachment, due to this prescription and if anything could have been done to reduce it I would have really welcomed it.

It's an interesting side point, but if you decide to have surgery to reduce your myopia you (laser surgery or lens replacement) then this does not decrease the risk of myopia associated eye health issues. You're still a myopic person really, even though you've had your cornea reshaped (that's the clear bit of the front) to reduce the prescription, you're still at risk of the eye health conditions as if you still have the long eye that you had before the surgery. So if you do have surgery make sure you keep up with the regular examinations to keep an eye on those things.

Why is there an epidemic of myopia? Well there was always thought to be a genetic component to myopia development, but in recent times we have found there is a strong environmental component and reduced time outside and therefore time inside (doing close work) seems to have really driven up levels of myopia. 

Parents obviously worry about kids being on screens too much and the way I think about this, is that time outside is the positive thing you need to talk about to them and encourage. The reality is that it's very difficult for young people to avoid times on screens through education, but if they are outside doing something enjoyable that’s got to be a win-win situation.

So, to summarise there is a myopia epidemic and millions more people around the world are becoming short-sighted. While there's a degree of convenience about being short-sighted and there is the cost of glasses and contact lenses, the main issue is that as you become more myopic you're a greater risk of the whole variety of eye health conditions - therefore we are now trying to look to control myopia through the use of some lifestyle changes specifically two hours a day outside for young people and also the use of special myopia control spectacle lenses and contact lenses. If your optometrist has not spoken to you about these things and you have a child that is at risk or has started to wear in glasses because they're myopic. then you need to ask your optometrist or change optometrist!

Link to my attempt to explain/demo myopia https://youtu.be/JQRqlQY2_zM