Nearsighted? Treat it.

It’s time to get myopia under control.

Myopia or nearsightedness is when the eye is excessively long or the cornea is overly curved such that light rays are focused in front of the retina instead of on it which results in blurry distance vision.

For years, the only way many eye doctors were taught to address this was vision correction with glasses or regular day time contact lenses. While this does sharpen the vision, evidence is building that this optical “solution” is also part of the problem!

When a nearsighted eye is fully corrected, as shown in the picture above, the central light rays are focused on the fovea, the area of your very central, detailed vision which resolves the distance blur associated with myopia. However, not all the light rays passing into the eye is focused on the plane of the retina. The peripheral light rays are actually coming to a focus behind the retina, also known as “hyperopic defocus.”

This defocus has been theorized to provide a growth signal to which the eye responds to by increasing in length or undergoing axial elongation. This growth is what causes myopia to progressively worsen and increase the risk for myopia-related pathologies such as retinal detachments.

Treatments now exist - which is why we should shift the paradigm from reactive correction to proactive treatment. Orthokeratology and MiSight 1 Day contact lenses are both excellent corrective options to consider as they provide vision correction while creating an opposing signal peripherally that can slow myopic progression by 45-50%.