Myopic Clinic
Myopia develops when the eye grows too long from front to back, which causes light to focus in front of the retina rather than directly on it. For those with nearsightedness, distant objects appear blurred while nearby objects remain clear.
This condition develops during childhood, when the eyeballs are experiencing rapid growth, and tends to progress gradually or rapidly into the late teen years. Myopia can be easily corrected using corrective glasses or contact lenses.
Severe nearsightedness puts you at an increased risk of sight threatening conditions such as retinal detachment, glaucoma, cataracts and myopic maculopathy — damage in the central retinal area. The tissues in individuals who have myopia are stretched and thinned, causing tears, inflammation, new blood vessels that are weak and bleed easily, and scarring.
The Myopic Clinic at The Eye Institute offers several different customized treatment options to prevent the onset or reduce the progression of myopia in pediatric patients specifically. An hour of the appointment time will be spent in the Myopic Clinic, where an optometrist will discuss both the causes of myopia and current treatment options. Then, the child’s eyes will be evaluated to review any possible myopia progression present during the examination.
Optometrists will look at the amount of myopia (refraction) in the child’s eyes and measure the length of their eye. After the evaluation, treatment options will be discussed based on each individual child’s current needs. Patients are carefully monitored and reviewed every six months to assess the efficacy of the chosen treatment modality.
The treatments offered include:
Orthokeratology
Orthokeratology (Ortho-k) is a non-surgical vision correction treatment using specially designed contact lenses to gently reshape the cornea (the front surface of your eye). As the contact lens is worn at night, it temporarily molds the eye surface into the optimum shape that allows for clear, natural vision. The effects last all day, providing vision for users without wearing glasses or contact lenses during their waking hours freeing them from issues with glasses or regular contact lenses for sports, swimming and performing the activities they love. They will need to be worn each night to maintain the shape of the cornea. The additional benefit of Ortho-k is that it has been shown to decrease the progression of myopia.
Atropine eye drops
Low dose atropine, available in eye drops, has been found to reduce the progression of myopia. Applied once a day, atropine treatment is continued as long as myopia progression continues. It is not a cure, but it has shown to control myopia in many patients and in some cases may be used in conjunction with bifocal eyeglasses to enhance the myopia control effect.
Multi-focal contacts
Multi-focal contacts are soft contact lenses with multiple treatment zones of plus power. They are made with different lens powers, targeting vision at varying distances from the wearer. Basically, they are contact lenses with multiple prescriptions in one lens. This design corrects peripheral defocus in the retina that aids in the reduction of myopia progression.