Myopia, or nearsightedness, is becoming increasingly common in children—and when it affects your child, it can get worse over time. We can provide effective solutions for correcting vision and slowing its progression.
Slowing myopia not only helps improve lifetime eye health, but also helps reduce the need for progressively thicker, more powerful lenses. So, by addressing myopia early, we can help your child maintain their eye health and comfort throughout their life.
Schedule your child’s eye exam to take the first step in protecting their vision and preserving their eyes as they grow.
Together, we can come up with the best option for your child, whether it’s specially engineered spectacle lenses, soft contact lenses, nighttime contact lenses (orthokeratology), or low-dose atropine eye drops.
Myopia develops when the eye grows too long or the cornea curves too much, making things far away look blurry while close-up objects remain clear. It usually starts in childhood and can progress into the early twenties.
If myopia runs in your family, your child may be more likely to develop it. Not spending enough time outdoors or spending an unsustainable amount of time on near tasks (such as digital devices) may also contribute to myopia development.
Similarly, the earlier the onset of myopia occurs, the more the risk of developing high myopia increases and the risk of fast myopia progression. Regular eye exams are crucial to preserve your child’s visual health.
If you suspect your child has blurry vision, let’s talk about how we can help.
Clear vision often plays a vital role in children’s ability to learn, explore, and succeed academically. When a child has myopia, tasks like reading the whiteboard or following along in a textbook can become challenging, leading to frustration and other potential effects on their confidence and participation in class.
When we diagnose and help manage myopia early, we can create a tailored plan to support your child’s visual development. Our goal is to keep their vision clear and their confidence high.
Regular eye exams are a crucial part of identifying vision issues like myopia early, and setting your child up for success in and out of the classroom.
Because myopia can get worse over time, diagnosing it early is crucial. There’s no cure for myopia, but identifying it early allows us to take the steps to slow it down and help preserve your child’s vision before it gets worse.
Axial length measurement is a standard test in myopia management that we provide. It involves measuring the full length of the eyeball. As the eye grows longer, it can lead to worsening vision over time, with an increase in myopia.
A normal eye length is 22 to 24mm. When the eye grows longer than 26mm, the risk of your child suffering vision impairment in their lifetime is 25%. If the eye grows to more than 30mm, which can occur in very high myopia, the risk skyrockets to 90%.
The good news is that reducing the final level of myopia by only 1 diopter reduces the lifetime risk of vision impairment by 20%.
When we talk about myopia control, the main goal of all therapies is to slow the axial elongation—or growth—of the eyes. In fact, axial length alone is a key indicator of your child’s risk of developing high myopia later in life.
If your child’s eye exam shows signs of myopia, don’t worry—you’re not alone. Our team will recommend a personalized myopia control method tailored to your child’s age, lifestyle, and unique vision needs.
By taking action early, we can help slow the progression of myopia and support your child in enjoying clearer, more comfortable vision every day.
Standard corrective devices do not slow the progression of childhood myopia, but specific treatments do.
The current myopic interventions encompass 3 different mechanisms, i.e. a pharmaceutical effect (atropine), inducing a myopic peripheral defocus (Stellest, orthokeratology, and contact lenses), and lowering the contrast of images on the retina (DOT 2.0 lenses).
It is important to note that no treatment can promise the ability to stop myopia progression in children.
These daily disposable soft contact lenses let your child see clearly and work to manage how light focuses at the periphery of the eye, reducing the eye’s elongation. It’s a simple, safe, and effective way to help protect your child’s vision and quality of life.
MiSight 1-Day dual-focus contact lens is well tolerated and has the longest and most robust data available on the safety and efficacy of any soft contact lens option for myopia control.
Ability 1-Day is a relatively new product specifically designed to slow the progression of myopia in children. The RingBoost technology maintains vision while providing a very high treatment power.
Multifocal lenses are commonly used for adults, but they also offer promising benefits for children with myopia. These lenses not only correct vision but can slow the progression of nearsightedness over time.
Multifocal lenses are good alternatives to MiSight 1-Day and Ability 1-Day, but generally not a first option.
Ortho-k lenses are specially designed lenses that gently reshape your child’s cornea overnight, so they can enjoy clear vision during the day without glasses. These lenses help slow myopia over time, and can be a convenient option for kids with active lifestyles.
We use Paragon CRT and Abiliti overnight lenses. While Paragon CRT is the first overnight contact lens to receive FDA approval for correcting myopia, Abiliti overnight lenses are the only ortho-K lens approved for myopia control in Canada.
When used in low doses, atropine eye drops can help slow down the changes in your child’s vision caused by myopia. They can also be combined with other myopia control methods.
Spectacles or contact lenses are still needed to correct the blurred vision from myopia, as atropine only acts to slow myopia progression.
The Essilor Stellest lenses adopt the Highly Aspherical Lenslet Target (H.A.L.T.) Technology. It features 11 concentric rings of highly aspherical lenslets.
Each ring features lenslets of a different power, and within a ring the lenslets are continuous (touchings). Those lenslets creates a peripheral defocus in the eyes and act as the treatment zone to slow down myopia progression. There is a 9mm clear central zone and spaces between each ring for sharp distance vision.
The SightGlass Vision Diffusion Optics Technology (DOT) spectacle lenses use microscopic diffusers of around 1/10th of a millimetre and have a smaller central clear zone. This is different from the ‘lenslet’ spectacle designs, which instead create a diffusion or blur of light around the edges of the lens.
Book an eye exam today to explore personalized myopia control options we recommend for your child. Our team can assess their unique needs and develop a tailored plan to help slow myopia progression, reduce future risks of eye health complications, and support clear, comfortable vision as they grow.
Together, we can protect your child’s vision and put their long-term eye health first.
The World Council of Optometry adopted a resolution about the Standard of Care for Myopia Management by Optometrists on April 13, 2021. The resolution states that correcting the refractive error is no longer sufficient and that myopia management should not be optional but rather an obligation of optometrists.
It was endorsed by the Canadian Association of Optometrists in January 2022.
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