Myopia (or Nearsightedness) is so common that you might think that you know it clearly. However, there are still several facts about myopia that surprise you. These facts help you understand your eye conditions and then step-by-step offer the best solutions for your concerns
1. There Are More Than One Type Of Myopia
One of the false assumptions of Myopia is that people always think there is only one type of Myopia. This is not true. In fact, it has more than you think. Those are including
+ Simple Myopia: This is more common than others. The degree of sightedness is usually less 6 dioptres and found commonly in school children.
+ Nocturnal Myopia: (also call night myopia) This is a condition in which the eyes have a great difficulty to see in a low-light environment, but appear normal in daylight
+ Pseudomyopia: Pseudomyopia is temporary near-sightedness due to muscle spasm when your eyes focusing for too long. It will usually disappear after a rest
+ Degenerative Myopia: This is a serious and rare vision problem in which the degree of near-sightedness increases non-stop and can result in retinal detachment or glaucoma.
+ Induced Myopia: This condition is a result of using too many pharmaceutical agents, variation in blood sugar. It is often temporary and reversible.
2. Myopia Prevalence Varies By Ethnicity.
Did you know that the popularity of myopia varies by different ethnicity? In America, about 42 percent of people whose age from 12 to 54 is near-sighted. People in Africa have the lowest percentage of near-sightedness at 15 years of age, while East Asian shows the highest prevalence at about the same age.
3. Heredity Is A Major Cause Of Myopia
Scientists explained that heredity is a major risk factor of Myopia. If any of your family members are myopic, you are likely to have myopia or to develop one later in your life. It also means you are more susceptible to the condition if you take care of your eyes properly.
4. Myopia Can Be Caused By Abuse of Personal Electronic Devices
Parents usually worry that their kids will get myopia from over-using electronic devices. In fact, there is no evidence showing this. Myopia’s first outbreak was in the 1960s, it was before the advent of the internet, electronic devices, mobile phones, and tables. However, there is evidence that a person who doesn’t balance the time spent on electronic gadgets is at a greater risk of having myopia.
5. What Does It Mean If Your Vision At 20/20 In An Eye Test?
If your eyes are rated 20/20 in an eye test, it is considered the normal vision. It means at a distance of 20 feet, you can be able to read a letter clearly without any difficulties. Most human beings should be able to do so at this space. However, if you only can read the big E at the top of the eye chart but none of the letters below, your vision is rated 20/200, meaning you can read a letter from 20 feet while normal vision can read it easily from 200 feet. So your vision is actually very poor.
6. In Smaller Eye Clinic, Mirrors Are Used To Stimulate The Standard Distance For Test
In the United States, eye charts are usually placed on a wall that’s about 20 feet away from a patient chair. However, many eye clinics or doctor offices don’t have rooms that are long enough, so the eye chart is often hung behind the patient chair and mirrors are used to make it look like it appears in front of you at a distance of 20 feet.
7. You Cannot Get A Driving License If Your Best Corrected-visual Acuity Is Less than 20/40
In most states in the US, your best-corrected vision acuity test must be at least 20/40 in order to get a license. According to the Eye Chart, the 20/20 line of letter’s position is fourth from the bottom, the following line 20/15, 20/10 and 20/5 is below that. While most human don’t have 20/10, but many animals, especially birds of prey do have that visual acuity. It is estimated some of them even have an acuity of 20/5 or more.
8. There Are More Than 1 Eye Chart Test
Just like myopia comes with different types, there is also more than 1 eye chart to test visual acuity. The most common chart we usually see in an eye doctor’s office is called a Snellen eye chart. However, in comes cases when patients are young children or illiterate persons who do not know the alphabet or have difficulty to recognized them, a modified version of the Snellen chart called a “Tumbling E” chart will be used. Other eye charts are also used in different cases such as “C chart” or “The Jaeger Eye Chart”.
9. Myopia May Occur Under Environment Factors And Health Problems
Just because heredity is the major cause of myopia, it does not mean that you will not have on even when there is no one who has myopia in your family. Myopia can also occur due to an environmental factor such as excessively using your eyes on intense visual work or myopia can also be found commonly in people who have diabetes.
10. Myopia Cannot Be Cured, They Can Only Be Slowed Down
We usually think that myopia can be cured after surgery but this is a false conception. Myopia itself is not a disease. It is a refractive error occurred when your eyeball growing too long. It prevents the eyes from forming a clear focus in the back of the eye and results in blurry vision. There is no cure for near-sighted so far. With high technology and technique nowadays, we can only slow down the progress. Laser eye surgery is one of the most effective long-term treatments for near-sightedness up to date.
11. Does Animal Get Myopia?
This is a good question, isn’t it? An eye doctor cannot simply ask elephants to read an eye chart or put glasses on a lion. So how do we know whether animals can get myopia? Scientists conducted some experiment on some of the wild animals to find out the answer. What do these tests reveal? They found that wild animals don’t display the same variation as human beings in their vision capabilities. Put it in a simple way, wild animal’s life expectancy is not long enough to suffer an age-related problem in their visions like us, so it is impossible to develop a risk of near-sightedness in animals’ eye
12. Best Diet For Myopia
Just like other body part, eyes also need nutrition to become healthier. A proper diet can maintain your eyesight and preserve the eye better. These are 5 common foods that can be helpful to maintain your eyesight.
Deep-Water Fish including salmon, tuna, and mackerel are great sources of omega-3 fatty acids. They not only help to maintain lubricate in the eyes and prevent dry eyes syndrome but also reduce the risk of developing cataracts later in your life.
Leafy Green Vegetables including kale, spinach or collard greens are the ones that contain a high level of lutein and zeaxanthin. These carotenoids act as a defense mechanism to prevent cataract formation and macular degeneration from developing.
Eggs and Carrots have rich vitamin A, it can help to prevent near blindness and dry eyes. High level of beta-carotene found in carrots can maintain our eye’s structural integrity and also promote healthy functioning of the eye component.
Berries and Citrus fruits provide great sources of vitamin C that help to improve our immune system and resist to eye infections and other diseases.
Nuts including almonds, pistachios, and walnuts can act as an antioxidant which helps to preserve our eyesight.
13. Children Who Spend Less Time Outdoor Are Likely To Have A Myopia
A long-term study in 1999 on the eye development of more than 1,200 children from age 6 to 14 (the age range when myopia typically develops) revealed that children who spent more time outdoors had a smaller change of having near-sightedness than those who spent less time outside
14. Future Smartphone Screens Could Fix Vision Problem
Yes, you heard it! People with visual problems including near-sightedness, farsightedness, and focal distance can say goodbye to their specular. Research scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media are developing the new display technology that can bring images on the mobile devices’ screen into focus. It’s a thin, transparent material that placed on top of the smartphone’s screen or any other devices. It works with a software program to correct the viewer’s focus distance. Although this won’t help people with visual impairments see everything more clearly, but it could improve their experience with smartphones and other devices.
15. Smoking Can Cause Eye Diseases
Smoking has been notorious for causing many diseases such as heart diseases and lung cancer. However, not so many people realize that smoking can lead to vision loss and increase the risk of developing cataracts, glaucoma, macular degeneration, and dry eye syndrome. So think twice when you lit a cigarette next time
16. What Is It Like To Be Near-sightedness?
For those who don’t have near-sightedness and never have to wear glasses in your life. You probably won’t see what others with near-sightedness see. An artist from South Africa whose name Philip Barlow had created unique masterpieces depicting the world in myopic people’s view without glasses. Check out those paintings via his Instagram and understand what is it like to be near-sightedness.
17. People Think Wearing Glasses Makes Myopia Worse
There is enough evidence to show that wearing glasses does not cause you more near-sightedness as people might think. We may find ourselves depend more and more on our specs and think wearing glasses would make it worse. But the truth is that our lenses continue to deteriorate with age, so we find ourselves needing the glasses more often, leading to the wrong assumption that the glasses must have made our vision worse.
18. Using Reading Glasses Or Pinhole Glasses Can Prevent Myopia
There is no evidence showing that reading glasses or other devices such as pinhole glasses can help us to prevent myopia. However, it can help in some cases but this is only for patients who had a comprehensive examination by an eye doctor.
19. Sitting Too Close To The TV Can Give You Near-sightedness
Parents always say this since TV first came into family, but actually, there is no evidence that buries your eyes right in front of the TV can make you myopic. The American Academy of Ophthalmology states that kids can focus up close better than adults without eyestrain, so they start to develop the habit of looking close to the TV or reading the material. However, this might also be a sigh of near-sightedness.
20. Computer Can Damage The Eyes
Computer use doesn’t damage the eyes. However, using computers for a long period of time make the eyes blink less than normal. This can lead to eyes dry or make the eyes feel fatigue. Over time, this can develop into near-sightedness or other vision problems
21. Ortho-K (Orthokeratology) Can Help To Reshape Your Cornea
What if I tell you that you can reduce your near-sightedness and correct your eyesight without a trip to an eye doctor or undergo surgery, wouldn’t that be great? It might sound unbelievable, but it is actually a reality. It’s called orthokeratology or Ortho-K as in short term. This is a kind of gas permeable contact lenses that you wear during your sleep at night. While you are asleep, the lenses start doing its job by reshaping the front surface of your cornea so you can see better the next day when you wake up and remove it. This treatment is good for people with mild to moderate myopia.
22. Is There Any Difference Between Wearing A Cheap And An Expensive Glass ?
You may think wearing an expensive glass could make your vision better than wearing a pair of cheap one. But this is incorrect, cheaper glasses work just the same as expensive glasses. However, there might be a little slightly different in built-in technology. For example, an expensive, prescribed one tend to have better protective technologies such as UV and more compatible with the individual wearer because they are customized.
23. Can Myopia Lead To Blindness?
The answer to you is yes. Myopia can likely lead to blindness in some circumstances. However, this is very rare and occurs mainly in some cases where high myopia reaches a stage called degenerative myopia or also known as pathological myopia
24. What Happens If Myopia Is Left Untreated
Mild myopia does not increase the risk for the eye health problem. But moderate myopia and high myopia sometimes can lead to serious, vision-threatening complications. This can be seen as degenerative myopia or pathological myopia. Even worse, these conditions can make you lose your vision permanently
25. Chinese Reflexology Point For The Eyes
According to Chinese Reflexology, when you massage the point at the bottom of your index and middle toe, you will most likely to increase the flow of blood to the eyes. This benefits your eyes because it will make the muscle and tendons to become “softer” and flexible. As a result of that, the muscle group that controls the eye movement will be relaxed and the eyeballs can return to their normal shape.
26. Can Myopia Get Worse With Age?
Myopia can be developed at any age. Children and teens have a tendency to develop myopia and it can get worse when they get older. It can become stable during adulthood if you take care of them properly. However, in some cases, myopia continue to increase under the right circumstances
27. A Connection Between Myopia And Glaucoma
In a study conducted in Australia, people found that myopia usually associates with glaucoma. The study revealed there is a strong connection between myopia and glaucoma. People with near-sightedness have a greater risk of glaucoma than those with no myopia
28. Can Eye Exercises Cure Vision Problems?
Eye exercises are one of the methods used to treat some vision conditions. It can help your eyes feel better and relaxed. However, if you have common eye problems, like myopia (near-sightedness), hyperopia (farsightedness), or astigmatism, you most likely won’t have many benefits from it. For decades, people believed and promoted eye exercises as a natural treatment for vision problems, including eyesight. But there is very little evidence confirm this
29. Near-sightedness May Relate To A Refined Diet
The food that we eat may also play a big role when it comes to causing near-sightedness. High refined starches such as bread and cereals in food can increase insulin level. This affects the development of the eyeball and causes near-sightedness. A team led by Loren Cordain at Colorado State University in Fort Collins explained modern processed bread and cereals increase the rate of starch digestion. This results in the pancreases pumping out more insulin and lead to a fall in levels of insulin like-binding protein-3 which related to the process of coordinating eyeball lengthening and lens growth.
30. There Are 3 Levels Of Myopia
There is a different amount of myopia. The degree of myopia someone has will determine how much his or her vision is impacted. This level is expressed in a term called dioptres. They are including
Low myopia: which is -3.00 dioptres or less,
Moderate myopia: which is between -3.00 and -6.00 dioptres
High myopia: referring to above -6.00 dioptres.
31. Once You Have A LASIK Eye Surgery, You Won’t Need To Wear Eyeglasses Ever Again
If you think that LASIK eye surgery can give your vision power back forever, then you might be wrong about that. Like any other treatments, it can only stabilize your eyesight for a long period of time or slow down the process of becoming near-sightedness again. Your vision still changes over time as a result of old age.
3#. The Infographic
Myopia inforgraphic at Thankyoureyes.com