Careful with your Child's Eyes!...

[frauenfeldclini]

Watch for initial myopia (blurred vision) symptoms occur in your child. Catch it early, actual nearsightedness is entirely preventable.

I am a behavioral ophthalmologist, soon retiring from a 40 year myopia rehab and prevention practice. I've seen a massive increase in myopia cases in young children in the past ten years.

You can PREVENT myopia in your child. It is very important that you keep them from spending too much time focused up close:

#1: Monitor your child's distance from books and screen:

At least 50cm is where you want to keep your child from any close-up materials. The closer the eye to the object, the more the ciliary (focusing) muscle in the eye is strained to keep sharp focus of the nearby object.

50cm! Enforce it until it becomes a habit.

#2: Limit ongoing close-up focus:

From school books, to computer games, to TV. A child can easily spend 6-8 hours a day close-up focused. This WILL result in myopia. Limit close-up time to 30 minutes at a time, if at all possible. Have breaks mean distance focus ... going outside, playing with moving objects, anything but a static focus on a close-up object.

Your kids DON'T need glasses. To keep an eye on their vision health, you can measure their vision strength at home, no optometrist visit necessary (and actually better if you do it yourself).

I may post more, time permitting, if there's interest in this topic.

 

[cybele]

Your kids DON'T need glasses. To keep an eye on their vision health, you can measure their vision strength at home, no optometrist visit necessary (and actually better if you do it yourself).

Sorry, but as someone with two kids who have worn glasses since ages 5 and 4, I would never, ever trust myself to monitor their vision myself. I'm not equipped to do that.

How is it <I>better</I> to diagnose your own children when you have little to no knowledge in the field than to send them to a medical professional?

 

[frauenfeldclini]

Sorry, but as someone with two kids who have worn glasses since ages 5 and 4, I would never, ever trust myself to monitor their vision myself. I'm not equipped to do that.

How is it <I>better</I> to diagnose your own children when you have little to no knowledge in the field than to send them to a medical professional?

Good point.

For check-ups, it's certainly wise to go see an ophthalmologist.

To put my comments in perspective: I am a retired behavioral ophthalmologist. I am a proponent for professional advice - in this case, providing a platform for education of parents.

Myopia (which is the high risk factor), is a single, very simple measurement. The shop may have an autorefractor, test lenses, astigmatism correction tools, etc.

All that does just one thing - measure the edge of blur.

That distance where the clear image becomes blurred. You don't need a medical professional for that measurement. It is actually something you want to do at least once every few months, much more likely to happen if you do it at home.

Second, many of those medical professionals tend to be a little overzealous in prescribing lenses.

For instance: if you measure your edge of blur in a dark room, with a single lit area to focus on, your vision will be anywhere from 1/4 diopter to a whole diopter weaker, than in a well lit area. Now you run the risk of getting a diagnosis that isn't remotely accurate.

Something as simple as printing a Snellen chart, hanging it up in a well lit room, marking a line for proper distance, and getting your child to tell what it sees ... it's all you need. There are kid friendly Snellen tests, with shapes of animals for instance.

I advocate vision health education. There is a lot there worth knowing, to keep kids eyes healthy. It takes two minutes to check the Snellen, and to catch blur. Take some preventative measures from there, if necessary.

Also, the odds that your children really need to have corrective vision at that age, are somewhat slim. It's a case where a little bit of focal plane work could quite possibly reverse their poor eyesight. You may enjoy talking to a behavioral ophthalmologist in your area for a second opinion, and potentially enabling your children to improve their vision.

I am glad to offer pointers, just in case you are curious about exploring alternatives. There is no right or wrong necessarily - but the biology of what happens in the child's eye, and environmental factors can be quite interesting!

- Dr. Alex

 

[cybele]

Given that both my boys have issues with depth perception, and were walking into things prior to their glasses and swearing that said thing they walked into wasn't there, it was "further away" and that the glasses now ensure that they do not bang into everything they walk by (and I should add that one of these boys is now 16) yeah... I think they need the glasses they have.

I think it is very easy for a parent to over-diagnose, or under-diagnose an issue. A small line of blur is very easy to mis-judge, which is why I think that seeing an optometrist is important.

As a parent, I can safely say that around 90% of the things I have guessed my children have, has been wrong.

 

[akmom]

Interesting. I have a 3-year-old with hyperopia, and he does wear corrective lenses. His ophthalmologist prescribed them at 18 months, saying it was important to catch early so he developed good brain vision.

It was so funny when he first started wearing the glasses. First of all, he was just about the cutest little guy ever. Second, he started grabbing at people's faces and laughing. You know, like infants do, except he was almost 2. One of the staff told me he was doing that because he had never seen human faces in such detail before!

 

[Shaun Austin]

I was just wondering do these sorts of things travel gentetically. Becasue I was wondering why Callum needs corrective lenses for reading yet both me and Charlotte have 'perfect' vision - or at least vision that doesn't need corrective lenses. I wasw wondering if eye issues (sorry to sound un-technical) can be present in gene pools and that me and Charlotte both have the reccessive gene.

Just a question