Myopia
Myopia is the most common cause of impaired vision in people under age 40 and the prevalence of myopia is rising.
The WHO estimates that this year, shortsightedness will affect 2.56 billion people and as a major risk factor for developing cataracts, glaucoma, and retinal detachment.
It is important to have regular visits to your optometrist if you have myopia or think you might have it.
What is myopia?
Known as ‘nearsightedness’, myopia is when you can see close-up objects clearly, but far away things appear blurry.
Nearsightedness is a refractive error where the eye does not bend (or refract) light properly, resulting in an unclear vision of faraway objects.
Myopia causes
Myopia is genetic. It occurs when the eyeball is longer than normal or your cornea (the protective outer layer of the eye) is curved too steeply. When light enters your eye it focuses in front of your retina instead of being precisely on your retina.
Myopia symptoms
These are the common signs you could have shortsightedness:
Eyestrain
Headaches
Squinting to see properly
Difficulty seeing objects far away, like road signs or the whiteboard for school kids
Myopia in children
Myopia is genetic, so pay extra attention to your children if you are nearsighted.
Children commonly develop myopia between 8 and 12 years old and during the teenage years the level of myopia can actually worsen as the body grows rapidly. Myopia normally stabilises when people are between 20 and 40 years old.
Common signs of myopia in children include:
Persistently squinting
Sitting close to the television, movie screen, or the front of the classroom
Unaware of distant objects
Blinking excessively
Rubbing their eyes often
Myopia treatment
Fortunately, myopia is easy to treat and can involve these options:
Single vision lenses: Glasses for myopia are ideal as they allow the light to reflect directly on your retina so vision appears clearly.
An anti-reflective coating on your lenses is ideal for comfort when wearing your glasses throughout the day. You can add this coating to your order during checkout.
Read further on to learn about the highest quality lenses you can get for the best prices.
Contact lenses: Spherical contact lenses and multifocal contact lenses are ideal for correcting myopia.
Eye drops from your optometrist can help slow the progression in children.
Extreme myopia
Also known as ‘high myopia’, this is when the eyeball grows bigger than it is meant to and becomes very long.
It makes it very difficult to see faraway objects but also increases your likelihood of developing cataracts, glaucoma, and a detached retina. If you have high myopia, you can normally treat it with glasses, contact lenses, or refractive surgery.
Myopia prescription
Your myopia prescription for both glasses and contact lenses will be a negative number in the ‘sphere’. The more negative the number is, it means the stronger your prescription is.
Eye exercises for myopia
Finally, you might have heard that eye exercises can be an alternative treatment to glasses or surgery for myopia. Unfortunately, eye exercises cannot treat short-sightedness, as they’re not able to alter the shape of your cornea.
However, we have compiled some eye exercises which could be helpful in reducing some of the symptoms resulting from myopia, like eye strain.
zFORT® blue light blocking glasses
Blue light is a potentially harmful form of light. While it is naturally emitted by the sun, electronic devices (upon which we’re spending more and more time every day) are also high-level producers.
Blue light rays at a wavelength between 415nm – 455nm can damage your retinal cells, which may lead to premature eye aging and vision problems in the future.
Our exposure to these harmful light rays may also cause a range of other health problems, including poor sleep (according to a 2012 Harvard Medical School study).
Find out more about how to protect your eyes from blue light with anti-blue light glasses from zFORT®.