Your visual health is important, and vision care starts at a young age. Myopia appears early in your children and can cause vision issues throughout their daily life. The first step is visiting your optometrist for a comprehensive eye exam to address your child’s unique visual needs.
It’s essential to halt the progression of myopia to help your children overcome its effects. Let’s take a closer look at myopia, its effects, and how myopia control glasses work and help manage myopia.
What Is Myopia?
Myopia, also known as nearsightedness, is a common vision condition that typically develops at a young age and worsens from childhood through adolescence and causes distant objects to appear blurry.
Myopia can develop gradually or rapidly and occurs when the globe of the eye becomes too elongated from its ideal length, or the cornea has too much curvature, resulting in light entering the eye to focus improperly in front of the retina.
The globe of the eye overgrows due to factors like genetics and your environment. Myopia in children sees an increase when parents are myopic.
Common signs and symptoms of myopia may include:
- Blurry vision when looking at distant objects
- Headaches caused by eyestrain
- Persistent squinting
- Blinking excessively
Myopia affects nearly 30 percent of the U.S. population and can affect your children’s academic performance and ability to enjoy daily adventures with friends.
Genetics plays an important role in developing myopia, and a modern lifestyle can influence how myopia develops. Some contributing factors to myopia may include:
- Insufficient time spent outdoors
- Prolonged time spent on digital devices, like smartphones
- Poor lighting levels
Myopia management methods are crucial to help control the progression of the condition and provide your children with clear vision.
Myopia Management with Glasses & Contact Lenses
Myopia management starts with your optometrist. During the initial consultation, your optometrist can thoroughly examine your child’s eyes through diagnostic tests and develop a customized myopia control program for your child.
Slowing down myopia progression is key—your optometrist will work with you to achieve this through different methods.
BT50 Glasses
BT50 glasses (+0.50 blue-light filtered reading glasses) are for children who are already being treated with ortho-k and soft multifocal lenses.
BT50 glasses are a companion to these treatments and reduce eye strain caused by vision fatigue and also filter out harmful blue frequency light emitted by digital devices. BT50 glasses
are usually prescribed to children that spend a chunk of their time reading books and viewing digital screens.
Proper Visual Hygiene
Good visual hygiene means practicing good reading habits! It’s essential to avoid bringing reading material too close to your face and to take frequent breaks to relax your eyes. You should also actively avoid using your smartphone for extended periods of time without a break.
Just like your body, your eyes need a break, and combining proper visual hygiene with BT50 glasses can be an excellent option to preserve your eye health.
MiSight 1 Day Contact Lenses
MiSight 1 day lenses are the first and only FDA-approved daily disposable contact lenses for children to slow down the progression of myopia.
MiSight lenses use ActivControl technology and vision correction zones within the lenses to slow axial elongation. Clinical trials have shown effective results for MiSight lenses, and they were shown to slow the progression of myopia in children aged 8 to 12 at the initiation of treatment.
Some advantages of MiSight 1 day contact lenses include:
- Suitable for children as young as 8
- Simple for children to wear and handle
- Able to correct your child’s distance vision
- Helpful to slow the progression of myopia
Get Ahead of Myopia Progression
Myopia is a common vision condition, but methods such as myopia control glasses, proper visual hygiene, and MiSight 1 day contact lenses can help slow the progression of myopia and help your children overcome the condition. Book a consultation with your optometrist at Golden Vision to find the right myopia control methods for you and your children.
