Entry into Stair Case Myopia -- Defined

Subject: Entry into stair-case myopia defined.

This accurately defines stair-case myopia,
(the natural eye's adaptation to change in
its AVERAGE visual enviroment) See:


http://www.geocities.com/soonicansee/

It would be wise to find an OD, who
supports the second-opinion, if
you wish to help your child avoid
entry into serious myopia.

Check:

www.chinamyopia.org

For optometrist who will discuss the possibility
of plus-prevention for your child -- provided
you will HELP your child with this issue.

Otis

 

Subject: Six clinical studies DEFINE stair-case myopia.

DwnRate4.txt


Dear Vision-protection friends,


Subject: Facing tough facts -- making a choice.

Re: The reasons and need for plus-prevention.


I know that we can not over simplify science and the facts.

Yet an effort must be made.

To me, the Eskimo data truly tells the 'story" of the natural
eye's behavior:

http://www.geocities.com/otisbrown17268/DynamicEye.html

In our "modern" society, where we are forced to spend 12 to
16 years in this "reading" environment, our eyes simply go DOWN at
-1/2 diopter per year.

I know that it is hard to understand this issue, and harder
to take effective action against it.

I am pleased that some people have the "smarts" to use the
preventive-plus correctly.

Here is the data for six separate studies -- so there can be
no doubt about it.

The facts are that from age six to sixteen, our eyes go
"down" in this manner.

I always like to present the facts themselves concerning the
natural eye's dynamic behavior.

That way you can look at them and personally decide what you
wish to do about them.

Here are six studies, and the results of the control group.
They ALL show the same thing.

If exclusively one study showed that -1/2 diopter per year,
and all the other studies showed zero diopters, or a positive
change, then I would question the concept of prevention.

But when all of them show -1/2 diopter per year DOWN, you
MIGHT take preventive measures more seriously.

Whatever you do -- I would keep these results in mind, if you
think that plus-prevention is a "joke".

___________________________

Study #1, Oakley-Young, 200+ children, four years. Control group
went DOWN by -2 diopters in four years. The plus group did
not go down.

- 0.02 diopters per year, thus -0.08 diopters in four years.

Versus

-0.52 diopters per year (over four years) single minus lens, or
-2.08 diopters in four years for the control group.

Francis Young
Primate Research Center
Washington State University
Pullman, Washington

___________________________

Study #2 In the COMET study (children) the 3 year data is:

Single vision: -0.49 D/yr over five years.

___________________________

Study #3 Single vision,

two myopic parents: -0.51 D/yr

one myopic parent: -0.40 D/yr

___________________________

Study #4 Fulk et al,

Single vision minus: -0.49 D/yr

___________________________

Study #5 Parssinen (age 9 to 11) 3 yrs

Single-Vision Dist only, SV: -0.48 D/yr
___________________________

Study #6 the Leung JT, Brown B. Study:

Single minus vision lens: -0.625 Diopters per year

___________________________

I know that most people have no concern about their distant
vision at the threshold stage, and that the minus is very simple,
easy an quick.

There has never been a "pure-plus" preventive study, but the
Oakley-Young study intimates that plus-prevention could be
successful if the use of the plus were consistently used, and the
PARENTS understood the implications of these six studies.

These are the issues a parent (and child) must consider if he
wishes to work with a second-opinion professional -- with the goal
of keeping the child's distant vision clear (a positive refractive
STATE) through 12 years in school.

In my opinion, these issues must be presented to the parent
(in an honest discussion) with the parents ultimately making this
either/or choice.

This was the real "issue" of Dr. Raphaelson's story of the
"Printer's Son".

For me this is stark evidence that only prevention is
possible - and must be started before the minus.

Visual standards must be met, but for a child, 20/60 to 20/40
is a very reasonable standard to maintain. Yet, I know Of
children with 20/60 who have a prescribed -2.75 diopter lens.

I believe that this is necessarily part of the
review-process with a parent, and difficult to understand - at
first. But I think that the parents should take the time to
understand it.

Best,

Otis

++++++++++++

 

My eyes might be a case in point, maybe someone would like to study
them. My eyes were uncorrected until my late teens and yet myopia
progressed in my right eye. I use both of my eyes for distance and
intermediate and my right eye for reading. Maybe we shouldn't let
children read or do other close work until their eyes are fully grown.

 

Hello. This is my first post and I am not an eye practitioner.

Actually this is not true in my case. I am 33 years old and still
progressing in what seems to be a similar reproduction of that graph.
I can guarantee that within 2-3 months of a new prescription I notice
my vision is poorer. The change feels sudden then my vision seems to
stay there, until another 3 months goes by when I notice another drop.
At this point I can tell that my vision is just as bad as it was
before I started wearing the new glasses.

In fact my progression seems to have accelerated in the last few
years. I got my first pair of glasses aged 19 and gradually got worse
since then, but didn't need to wear glasses full time until I was
about 23. Then the progression slowed down a bit for about 4-5 years
(I have always thought that I have done excessive near work all the
way through, but it is possible that the amount of near work was
slightly less during these the first 3 of these 4-5 years). Since then
I feel like I could do with a new prescription after 6 months of a new
prescription.

Wearing the minus lens doesn't seem to have made any difference in my
case. During the 4-5 slow years I wore them continuously even during
mammoth 4 hour sessions at the computer. Now I tend to remove my
glasses at the computer. I think the problem is the amount of near
work. I saw a figure quoted on this newsgroup a while back saying
something like 50% of your time should be away from near work in order
to prevent myopia progression. I would be interested to learn more
about this. I also read that myopia is supposed to stop after a 3 year
window (obviously not true in my case but let's consider the cases
that do) and this is despite continued near work. I would like to know
if this is really true or if the near work was in fact less. Later
onset is also supposed to help but clearly there is no strict rule.

On the other hand, how come my uncorrected vision is better in the
morning after a night's sleep? My uncorrected vision also becomes
noticeably better if I remove my glasses for 10 minutes or so.
Atropine drops or RGP contact lenses slowing down myopia - that's
incredible and would surely point to a muscular tension problem being
relieved?

Could it be that a normal eye is still straining to see close up?

Why do uncorrected myopes, myopes not wearing glasses, also

Could it be that the slight myopia is not sufficient to elimiate the
strain?

It seems to me that we are not going to find a 'one size fits all'
solution. Perhaps the plus lens does work in a minority of cases?
Would scientists throw out this data as outliers? I personally know a
few people who had low prescriptions (perhaps -1.00D ish) who wore
their glasses full time all through university, and who no longer need
them even for driving.

Going back to the soicansee web page, it says that "without the use of
the prescription glasses (minus lens), myopia seldom progresses beyond
-3.00D. It will normally stay below -2.00D ..." but the supplied data
shows that *all* subjects remained at -2.00D or less. So the data is
suspect there. You are always going to find some people with a low
prescription as you will find people requiring no prescription at all.

Thanks
Richard

 

Hi--I too, have continued to progress throughout my adult life--
nearsightedness even worsening after presbyopia set in. I have always
wondered WHY--as you do. As many have pointed out, the reasons are
likely many, and complicated. I'm not doing much at present to try to
prevent my own progression. I have tried natural vision improvement
techiques which actually did improve my vision slightly (this was
about 8 years ago)--this was great, but the down side was that most of
the time I was wearing weak glasses or no glasses---a very blurry
world! When I did put on my full strength glasses for driving, I saw
perfectly, and this did not diminish---as long as I did not wear them
full time.

If I wear "almost full correction" (contacts or glasses), my vision
tends to gradually worsen-----very frustrating! One must function in
the world!

C66

 

It would be really interesting to find a post by Cletis that wasn't
manufactured.

Cletis is the guy behind penis lengthening exercises and tablets. They
didn't work either.

 

That is interesting. I read that presbyopia was the final thing to
stop myopia progressing. So again we find that we can't generalise. I
agree that the reasons for myopia are very complicated and poorly
understood but it feels like our knowledge on the subject is not
improving. At least Opticians accept that near work is a risk factor
these days - I remember when they argued that it was impossible to
strain the eyes. It must be even harder to attempt to explain
astigmatism (mine has increased along with the myopia) or even that
one eye will progress quicker than the other and end up at different
prescriptions.

It is encouraging to hear that you were able to halt the progression.
I sometimes wonder if we are just destined or programmed to be myopic
to a certain degree; that our eyes naturally will arrive at a certain
point in the same way as a normal eye will become less hyperopic
through childhood and then stop when it knows the time is right. In
other words, perhaps our eyes see the normal point as being slightly
myopic for some reason and the corrective lenses just make the eye
want to get back to that position.

 

The concept of "eye strain" is rather archaic. The operative phrase
now is "retinal defocus." Rather than looking for red herrings that
produce mechanical "strain," scientists are now looking at the optical
system and retinal image quality.

DrG