Whether your child is learning at school, playing with their friends, or just relaxing at home, they rely on their distance vision to make the most out of life. However, a common condition called myopia can affect your child’s visual clarity and possibly even increase their risk of other complications in the future.
When your child is diagnosed with myopia, their vision usually declines over time, leading to new glasses with increased prescriptions year after year. But with a unique treatment now available at Evolutionary Eye Care, the progression of your child’s myopia can actually be managed and their vision can improve over time!
What is Myopia?
Myopia, also known as nearsightedness, is a condition in which distance vision is blurry. Usually when you have myopia you need glasses to see things far away. If your child has myopia, they might squint when watching TV or trying to read the board at school. They may have frequent headaches, watery eyes, and report eye strain. This condition typically gets worse over time and requires glasses with higher and higher prescriptions. While traditional glasses and contacts can help correct your child’s vision, there are actually myopia control techniques that can help keep your child’s vision from worsening!
What is Orthokeratology?
Orthokeratology (or Orthok) is a treatment available at Evolutionary Eye Care that prevents the progression of myopia. It can keep your child’s eyesight from getting worse over time. Orthok uses a retainer that the child wears only while they sleep. During this time, the lenses gently reshape the cornea to correct their vision. When your child wakes up, they remove the retainers and will be able to see clearly without the need for contacts or glasses! Similar to the way braces and retainers work to straighten teeth, Orthok works to improve your child’s vision while they sleep.
Why does Myopia Progression Matter?
For one thing, the expense and upkeep of glasses can be a pain. As a mom of two kids in glasses, keeping up with the glasses, making sure your child actually wears them, getting scratched lenses replaced and kept clean, etc can truly be a headache. But aside from the maintenance of glasses, OrthoK can also reduce your child’s risk of certain eye diseases!
Myopia progression occurs because the eye is growing faster than it should, specifically the back of the eye, called the retina. The faster and longer the retina grows, the greater the risk of certain eye diseases like glaucoma, macular degeneration, and retinal detachments. These conditions can even cause permanent vision loss in adulthood! Additionally, the higher the glasses prescription gets, the more blurry your child’s natural vision becomes. This can reduce the likelihood they will be a candidate for regular contacts or LASIK as an adult.
Take the Next Step
Check out Evolutionary Eye Care and schedule an appointment today to find out if orthokeratology is a good fit for your child. Dr. Pillai has a special interest in helping children manage myopia progression. He serves as a board member and a Fellow of the American Academy of Orthokeratology and Myopia Control, an organization that is dedicated to educating the public on how orthokeratology and other techniques can hep preserve a child’s vision. With the help of their many myopia control techniques, Evolutionary Eye Care is here to help preserve and improve your child’s visual clarity!
