What Are The Factors That Contribute To Worsening Of Myopia?

Myopia is one of the commonest refractive errors. However, when the condition progresses consistently, your vision tends to worsen further. Some of the factors that may cause myopia to worsen include uncontrolled screen time, underlying medical conditions, genetics, no or little exposure to natural light, and environmental conditions. Before you limit those factors that lead to myopia control or prevent it from to worsening, you must find out what myopia is all about.

 

Myopia: essential things to know

Myopia is an erroneous condition of your eyes that occurs when the light entering your eyes tend to refract or bend in a flawed manner. Ideally, light must fall on the retina but when you are myopic, light falls in front of the retina, allowing distant objects to appear blurred. The viewer may see everything going out of the focus. Naturally, he blurred vision is due to the irregular shape of the eyes wherein the length of the eyes appear too long or the cornea appears too steep. That’s how the light tends to bend when entering your eyes, hampering your vision greatly. The symptoms of myopia include:

1. Frequent headaches
2. Not able to read at a distance
3. Difficulty in seeing things at a distance
4. Avoiding reading
5. Rubbing eyes
6. Lower attention span
7. Tendency to tilt the head at one side

Outcome of high myopia

When myopia progresses to a certain point, it reaches dangerous levels and vision of -6 D or higher may increase the risk of developing more serious eye conditions like:

• Cataract
• Macular degeneration
• Glaucoma
• Detachment of retina

Factors that cause myopia to worsen

Although environmental factors are believed to contribute to myopia, the common reason is genetic. So, if one or both parents have myopic eyes, it increases the risk of myopia progressing into dangerous levels. Here are the factors that may cause myopia to worsen:

1. Increased screen time

One of the reasons that may cause your myopic eye condition to worsen is increased screen time. Studies reveal a close association between nearsightedness and uncontrolled screen time. Today, most people stay hooked to their digital devices like phones, tablets, and computers all of which cause myopia to worsen as the condition puts a lot of stress on the focusing skills.

2. Increased activities with near vision

Have you ever noticed your child trying to read or write while keeping the things near to the eyes? Chances are that your kid has developed myopia. For myopia control, children need to be taken to an optometrist for comprehensive eye examinations. However, near vision may just be another habit in many people. Continuing to watch television, look at smartphone or tablets, and sitting close to the computer screen may cause myopia to progress further.

3. No or little exposure to natural light

Ever wondered how long do you spend time outdoors and indoors? Is there a balance between the two? Unfortunately, modern-day life and the technological wonders keep most people including children indoors. Therefore, their eyes are not exposed to natural light more often, which cause myopia to progress further. When you spend time outdoors, your eyes can focus on distant objects and allow the muscles to relax.

4. Underlying health conditions

People with underlying health conditions like diabetes may face the risk of myopia to worsen.

What happens when myopia progresses further?

Usually, myopia stops progressing once an individual reaches the early stage of adulthood.  However, some people may experience further development of myopia beyond adulthood due to stress on the eyes and underlying health conditions. With proper myopia control Malaysia, people may benefit irrespective of the age or any other reason.

How to prevent myopia from worsening?

While you cannot control the genetic factors like family history or age, there are other things that can help you prevent myopia. Here they are:

• Spending more time outdoors and increasing the duration to about one hour each day.
• Limited screen time after work hours for adults and up to two hours only for children
• Everyone from children to adults need to go for regular eye examinations to detect anomalies within the eyes
• Come of the other techniques for myopia control is using low-dose atropine drops, orthokeratology or Ortho-K lenses, and peripheral defocus contact lenses.

You are aware of the factors that may cause myopia to worsen. Therefore, you need to identify which factors may trigger myopia in your case. This way, you can take the right steps proactively and manage nearsightedness better. Apart from this, you must also control a renowned optometrist for early detection and seeking the right treatment for myopia. Navigate to https://www.malayaoptical.com/  to book an appointment with a qualified and trained optometrist today.