{"id":41282,"date":"2021-11-01T09:24:51","date_gmt":"2021-11-01T13:24:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reviewofmm.com\/?p=41282"},"modified":"2021-11-01T09:24:51","modified_gmt":"2021-11-01T13:24:51","slug":"my-u-k-experience-with-myopia-management","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reviewofmm.com\/my-u-k-experience-with-myopia-management\/","title":{"rendered":"My U.K. Experience with Myopia Management"},"content":{"rendered":"
November 1, 2021<\/strong><\/p>\n By Nick Dash, BScHons (Bio), BScHons (Optom), MCOptom, Dip. SVA<\/b><\/p>\n Myopia is more than diopters. It is more than axial length, millimeters, or microns. <\/span>Indeed it i<\/span>s more than a pathological eye condition. It can be life changing.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p>\n My journey with myopia management began in the early 1990s. I worked with a senior optometrist who often prescribed executive bifocals to slow myopia progression in children. The goal then was to reduce the progression of spectacle lens power. However, we now know reducing axial length progression is the true goal of myopia management. At the time, I dismissed executive bifocals as \u201cpoor science,\u201d having only graduated from optometry school a few years earlier, and b<\/span>elieving these <\/span>studies lacked the robust scientific principles necessary to support prescribing a myopia management strateg<\/span>y. However, observing my<\/span> mentor opened my mind and made me wake up to the possibility of more effective myopia treatments.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Rethinking Treatment Plans A presentation by Jeff Walline, OD, PhD, at the Swedish Contact Lens Conference in 2014, about his research and his hands-on approach to myopic patient management was an influential moment in my career. His speech led me to think about a patient I had seen recently and what I could have done to treat him differently.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The patient was a 17-year-old male who was a -9.00D myope. He was a surfer who had been wearing soft contact lenses for years. He had developed an extensive superior retinal detachment\/tear with macular involvement in one eye with a drop in vision to 20\/200. All of this happened just before he was due to start an engineering degree at a prestigious university. He was told of the risk to the contralateral eye and went from being an active, positive person to more withdrawn and risk-averse. After three years of follow-ups, he still had not gone to university.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/b>It was not until 2014 that I started taking myopia management treatments more seriously. A combination of reading the latest research available and attending industry events had me rethinking how contact lenses could work to slow young patients\u2019 myopia progression.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n