my sons MYOPIC CONDITION

[shankari]

Hi doctor

I myself highly myopic -17 in each eye and last year I had retinal detatchement in my left eye, underwent 3 surgeries to get it fixed.

last month I got my son eye tested and the result was he is myopic -6 in left eye and -8 in right eye .
He is just 4 and half years old.

My question is with family history of myopia. How can I help my son to protect is vision, or slowing down the progression of myopia??????

Is there any latest technology which will help my kid????

What type of a diet  should he follow?

Please help me doctor.
I LOVE my son a lot he is my life.

As a parent what can I do for him?
Awaitng youre reply

[dukey]

The reality is that there really isn't much that you can do for him at this point except strive for optimal visual correction with the use of contact lenses and/or glasses and make sure he has regular checks with a retina specialist. There are some novel therapies that are currently being tested, some of which have limited approval in Europe. The aim of these therapies is to slow the progression of myopia. I have written so much on this in the last few weeks and you need to search the forum to fins out more. The issue is that unfortunately the core defects are present at birth in most cases of severe myopia and it is therefore very difficult to "cure" the underlying defects that lead to more serious issues later in life, as you have found out. Nobody really knows what the underlying cause of myopia even is so we are a long way from fixing this problem, if we ever will.

Perhaps the biggest breakthrough will come from chemically strengthening the back of the eye to prevent further progression of myopia. I believe that if this is done early enough, then myopia can be essentially stopped in its tracks. These techniques are already approved for other conditions of the eye in Europe and have been major successes. The good news is that there are two scientists competing to get this treatment to the clinic and both have published a number of articles demonstrating the safety and efficacy of the technique. The general belief is that it will be available within 10 years, but I think it will be sooner than that in Europe as I think the results will be quite dramatic in human trials. I will be the first to let you know if any progress is made on this.

I could write for days on this but it is really down to you to do a little more reading on this forum.

[shankari]

Thankyou verymuch for youre reply....

please don't forget me . keep me posted whenever there is new devlopments to slow down the progression of myopia.

[Sandy Feldman, MD, MS]

Dear shankari,

Extreme myopia of your level is not common.  We do not know why individual’s are prone to it but there is obviously some genetic component.  Sometimes, myopia of this level can be associated with ocular disorders.  To our knowledge, there are no preventive treatments.  Should new blood vessel growth occur in the back of the eye, there are treatments for that.

Dr. Feldman

Sandy T. Feldman, M.D., M.S.
ClearView Eye and Laser Medical Center
San Diego, California