To All the Mums Who Have Children with Myopia

I was wearing glasses for nearsightedness by the age of 7. Mine got steadily worse and then plateaued when I was a late teen.

I don't believe you can succeed the progression. Sorry - I've never heard of that.

Mine are -9.0 which is pretty bad. But it really didn't make a whole lot of difference to me - what my strength of lens was. Corrective lenses make you see just as well - so I see as well with my lenses as someone who has 20/20.

So don't be too sad. They will get worse likely and then plateau. Everyone in my family this happened to. My friends. My husband's family. And I'm kind of extreme. I only know my best friend has the same prescription as me. It's pretty unusual. Mostly people can still see for example if they go swimming without their lenses. You adapt.

I just pop in my contacts and go. I never think about it.

Glasses now are so cute. When I was a kid in the 70s, not so much.

There are worse things - he'll be ok :)

Mine progressed each year until my late teens (when I stopped growing), then it stabilized. So yes, progression through childhood is normal and not that big of a deal. By middle school, I was wearing contacts and wore them through college. Then, in my late 20s, I got Lasik and now I have 20/20 vision again.

Please note that a person can NOT get lasik until after her vision prescription has been stable for several years. So, this is something your child can think about for herself once she is an adult.

Although, there are so many cute glasses now that I've noticed that many kids don't wear contacts anymore, they prefer glasses.

Like others have said, there is no cure to nearsightedness, unless you want to consider LASIK a cure but even then, there is a chance that your vision will start to go after LASIK too, and you may need a future operation, or you may not even be a candidate in the first place. I never even knew I had a vision problem through many years of my teenage life because I never really needed to put my eyes through a lot. The first time I became aware of the problem was after I got my driver's license and had to get very close to the intersection before being able to make out the numbers and turn in time. When I picked up a friend, she told me that if I could not read the street signs until I was at a light, then I needed to get my eyes checked, regardless of what the DMV's eye exam had told me about my vision. She was persistent about it and said she was worried about me, so I took her advice. I was about 21 then, and both my father and sister needed glasses around this time. The vision test revealed I had myopia and since then, I have worn contacts, until earlier this year that I found a pair of glasses I really love, I splurged and now I wear those more than I wear my contacts, because they're just more comfortable (I suffer from chronic dry eye disease and photophobia, so contacts can start to bother me if I leave them on for more than 8-10 hours in a day and my eyes will get very red due to computer work and fluorescent light).

My daughter was found to have the other type of vision loss, presbyopia, at age 7. No one in our family had this until hitting late 40s/50s, so it was strange. Lots of kids in her classroom (I'd say 80% of them) wear glasses though, so she didn't feel uncomfortable about wearing hers at all. She actually likes wearing glasses because she says it makes her look smart and she says I look pretty with glasses and since she looks like me, she knows she also looks pretty in them. Lots of kids said they liked her choice of red frames (rather than the typical brown, black, or gold frames kids wear), so it really isn't a big deal at all! I have had some of her peers and some of the older kids come up and tell me they love my glasses and my daughter's and how well we pull them off, some have even said they think she looks cuter with glasses. Your child may actually grow to love wearing glasses and if not, there are always contacts. Please don't make it seem like it's a "loss", a "sad" thing, or a big deal that your child has myopia. Make it very matter-of-factly and let your child have an opportunity to choose a fun frame that suits him/her. The less negative you make eyeglasses seem, the less your child will think of it. Trust me, there are MUCH worse things in life that are worth being sad or worried about, like a child needing an organ transplant or dying from terminal cancer!

I don't know what you mean by "succeeded" the progression. Do you mean stop it? You can't. Once they are full grown adults and their eyes reach a point where they stop changing so rapidly, laser correction might be an option. There will probably be new options by then too!

I got my first pair of glasses by age 4. My eyes got progressively worse as I aged, finally leveling out in my late 20s. Since then my Rx has changed every few years.

Both of my kids are nearsighted too, although not as bad as mine. Sometimes their vision changes enough to need new, stronger glasses before a year has passed. It's annoying and can be expensive, but thank goodness that access to eyecare and glasses exists.

My husband is also nearsighted, but when he was 38 his vision actually got a little better and he needed a weaker Rx. Lucky dude!

Normal....
My son is on his 4th pair of glasses in the past 5 years.
eventually it'll stabilize
And I'm not exactly sure what the problem is here except that glasses are expensive and I thank God every day my husbands company has a great vision plan (the $200 allowance on Frames)....with that said, there are worse things....
cheer up and enjoy that look on his face when he puts on the new glasses....

You're sad your child is near sighted?
I'm sure this upsets you - but there are worse things in the world than being near sighted.

By the time I was 16 my focal point was the tip of my nose.
Seriously.
If I went swimming I had to identify people by the colors they were wearing.
Christmas trees (if I took off my contacts) were multicolored impressionist pyramids of huge diffused balls of light.
I went from no glasses in 4th grade to glasses in 5th and contacts in 7th (mine was a very thick prescription - high polymer plastic hadn't made the glasses very light weight yet).

There's a fix for this now that didn't exist when I was growing up.
When I was 37 and finished breast feeding I had lasik done on both eyes and had 20/20 vision!
Now, of course, I'm in my 50s and need reading and driving glasses - this is due to age making my corneas less flexible - but my sight is NO WHERE near as bad as it was for a good chunk of my life.

There is nothing you can do to control the shape of your childs eye balls.
The shape they take is all about genetics and the genes that you and Hubby passed down to your kids.

Once your child is an adult and their eyes have stabilized (not changing anymore) - then he/she might be able to have lasik performed.
Cheer up!
It's not something to be sad about.

My daughter's prescription changed 2x's per year from age 7 through 12 progressively getting worse. She just had her annual eye check and finally her prescription has stabilized at age 13!!! She has worn contact lenses since 3rd grade so I really don't think about it much.

She has two friends that wear contact lenses at night that actually reshape their cornea. The lenses are then taken out each morning leaving them with 20/20 vision. If they stopped wearing the lenses their vision would get worse.
Here is a link if you want to learn more... http://www.allaboutvision.com/contacts/orthok.htm

There is no cure for myopia and a cure seems to be what you're asking about here. But we're lucky to be living in a time when there are many options for correcting the vision -- though "correction" does not mean "cure." When your child is old enough there will be options including glasses, contacts and maybe laser surgery if that's applicable (not everyone can have it).

I'm figuring that since you refer to an annual visit "to check the eyes" and you use the term myopia, you are taking your child to an optometrist and not just going by what the pediatrician says--right? If you have been seeing only the pediatrician and getting the brief eye chart test there, be sure your child sees a optometrist for a full work -up, but I suspect you're doing that already. I would ask the optometrist for more facts so your mind is put at ease since this seems to upset you. It is absolutely normal for the nearsightedness to progress and then to level off and stop changing after a certain point in a child's growth. You're doing the right thing to keep getting your child's eyes checked annually -- keep it up! So many parents never take their kids for basic optometric exams until there's a problem!

I am very similar to Margie G- I got glasses when I was seven and my vision got progressively worse for years. Even now, I need a "tweak" in my prescription every few years. Other than having to double check that I didn't miss spots while shaving my legs in the shower, having poor vision really does not effect my life. I have a cousin who got LASIK and became an Air Force pilot, so really nothing is out of reach for the nearsighted anymore :). So no reason to be sad!