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Myopia: A Modern yet Reversible Disease

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Re: Myopia: A Modern yet Reversible Disease

#31

Post by Abishek_Muthian »

lefrenchy wrote: post #2

Does anyone have actual experience reversing myopia? During the pandemic my eye sight worsened pretty quickly and I have glasses for the first time ever (presumably the worsening was already there but accelerated by being on my computer more during lockdown, working longer hours, getting out of the house less). My prescription is really slight (I think like -.5 or -.75) and I was really curious if this was reversible…

> During the pandemic my eye sight worsened pretty quickly and I have glasses for the first time ever

You are not alone[1].

> Does anyone have actual experience reversing myopia?

Not me but I have heard from multiple independent contacts telling me that they reversed slight myopia through yoga at different period of time. And every time I hear that I try to search for scientific evidence and come back empty handed.

[1] https://needgap.com/problems/251-eye-strain-due-to-lockdown-... (Disclaimer: My platform)

Re: Myopia: A Modern yet Reversible Disease

#32

Post by jsnell »

hmsshagatsea wrote: post #20
jsnell wrote: post #17

This looks like total quackery to me, especially given the bogus claims about glasses making myopia worse. Is there any kind of credible scientific evidence for this working?

Bogus claims? Ok anecdotal evidence but I went to the eye doctor with my sibling when I was 8 and she was 10. We BOTH were proscribed the same glasses. I ended up wearing them all the time, and grew up to having a -4.0 by the time I was 30 My sibling? She never wore her glasses growing up and oddly enoug has perfect vision in her mid 30’s Now granted I spent most of my time growing up playing on the computer and read…

Yes, bogus. This is something that there have been many scientific studies on. Randomly do different levels of sight correction for kids, and look at what happens. Obviously these can't be double blind studies, so this is the best we can get. There simply is no evidence there of glasses making myopia worse.

In fact, in a famous case they had to abort the study early due to ethical grounds. The vision for the (uncorrected) control group was degenerating so much faster that they felt compelled to give everyone the correct prescription.

Re: Myopia: A Modern yet Reversible Disease

#33

Post by chansiky »

argonaut wrote: post #23

This experiment found that undercorrection (giving a prescription slightly weaker than correct) of myopia in children accelerated progression of myopia. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12445849/ . The results appear to have been replicated in another experiment: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16907670/

If we're going to cherry pick studies, according to one line in this more recent study (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26032395/) from the same website:

> "The regression analysis showed that myopia progression significantly decreased with increasing amount of undercorrection (r (2) = 0.02, P = 0.02) in all children"

Just because you have sources doesn't mean its true. Look at how healthy diets have changed in the past years based on scientific studies. If you wanted to be healthy according to 2005 science then by all means eat your low-fat high-carb diet.

Re: Myopia: A Modern yet Reversible Disease

#34

Post by sunstone »

lefrenchy wrote: post #2

Does anyone have actual experience reversing myopia? During the pandemic my eye sight worsened pretty quickly and I have glasses for the first time ever (presumably the worsening was already there but accelerated by being on my computer more during lockdown, working longer hours, getting out of the house less). My prescription is really slight (I think like -.5 or -.75) and I was really curious if this was reversible…

Weirdly, if you're over 40 and have been reading for a while and then look up and notice everything looks blurry in the distance, you can tighten up every muscle in your body for about ten seconds and when you relax much of your distance vision will be recovered. Let's call in the poor man's reversal.

Re: Myopia: A Modern yet Reversible Disease

#35

Post by the_d3f4ult »

fy20 wrote: post #28
nealabq wrote: post #24

Me and my children have found that nearsightedness gets worse pretty quickly if we read a lot of paper-printed material. But reading from a computer screen seems much less harmful. We also have reading glasses that are about 2 diopters weaker than our distance (driving) glasses. Anecdotal of course. I don't know anyone else who's claimed that reading a backlit computer screen is better than reading a printed book. I…

> We also have reading glasses that are about 2 diopters weaker than our distance (driving) glasses. I've been wearing glasses for 18 years. My prescription peaked around -3.75. Last year I got the usual eye strain suggesting my prescription needed changing, so I went to an optician and they suggested a stronger prescription: -0.5 more in each eye, and quite a strong change in astigmatism. I was a bit skeptical as us…

The opticians weren't deceiving you. As we age our natural lens loses its pliability and we're no longer able to accommodate enough to read things that are up close. It's helpful to understanding the eyes' ability to focus distance (plano or flat) light and its ability to focus near (diverging light) as independent processes.

The change in astigmatism they noted is likely related to changes in your natural lens caused by the same process.

Re: Myopia: A Modern yet Reversible Disease

#36

Post by the_d3f4ult »

kkoncevicius wrote: post #16

There is a sceptical comment from the audience at 36:50 [1]. Maybe someone here has the knowledge to comment about that? Is it true what the person says - that the actual problems with the eyes won't be fixed, you would just get better quality vision through some other way doing this? [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5Efg42-Qn0&t=2210s

The audience member is correct. Myopia is caused by light entering the eye being focused in front of the retina by our natural lens and cornea, this is usually as the result of increased axial length i.e. elongation of the eye.

The dangerous thing about this talk is that the first 2/3rds are true. Reading, looking at screens and working up close as a child and young adult do cause progressively worse myopia by way of progressive elongation. This isn't controversial at all. There's no evidence that spectacle use influences progression.

The latter 3rd is all bullshit. While our eyes continue to grow and elongate until around our mid 20's, there's no mechanism I'm aware of that can shorten the eye which is what you would have to do to "reverse" myopia. This is more or less common sense.

There are studies that show that low doses of atropine given to children who are myopic with reduce the progression, but not reverse pathological myopia. At this point we're just waiting on FDA approval of a low-concentration atropine drop. I suspect that in the near future the prevalence of high and pathological myopia is going to decrease dramatically.

Re: Myopia: A Modern yet Reversible Disease

#37

Post by eurasiantiger »

webmobdev wrote: post #11

Is there any study on how personality or mental health dicates myopia in someone? I've seen kids suddenly develop myopia when their parents suddenly start fighting (or get divorced), or in teenagers and young adults in schools and colleges when they can't fully deal with the prolonged stress of life. Our thought patterns do have an effect on our eyes, and I've always wondered if too much introspective thinking or dep…

Anecdotally, there are people who have perfect 20/20 near- and farsighted vision even though they went through domestic and school violence for two decades in childhood and adolescence, and still have all the symptoms of PTSD.

Re: Myopia: A Modern yet Reversible Disease

#38

Post by kkoncevicius »

the_d3f4ult wrote: post #36
kkoncevicius wrote: post #16

There is a sceptical comment from the audience at 36:50 [1]. Maybe someone here has the knowledge to comment about that? Is it true what the person says - that the actual problems with the eyes won't be fixed, you would just get better quality vision through some other way doing this? [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5Efg42-Qn0&t=2210s

The audience member is correct. Myopia is caused by light entering the eye being focused in front of the retina by our natural lens and cornea, this is usually as the result of increased axial length i.e. elongation of the eye. The dangerous thing about this talk is that the first 2/3rds are true. Reading, looking at screens and working up close as a child and young adult do cause progressively worse myopia by way of…

Thanks a lot for your reply. Yup I got this feeling after the presenter dodged that question. However I also got the impression that it is currently unknown wether the axis of the eye shortens after these exercises, is that true? I read more about the topic and some people call the improvement in visual acuity "blur adaptation" - can "blur adaptation" really produce such drastic effects, and if so - are there potential side-effects?

For example in my case I have medium myopia (< -3). The prospect of not wearing glasses anymore is very appealing to me and I don't really care about the length of the eye if all the symptoms disappear with this "blur adaptation. What am I missing?

Re: Myopia: A Modern yet Reversible Disease

#40

Post by perlancar3 »

legerdemain wrote: post #18
nicolas_t wrote: post #3

Anecdote, as a teen, I was diagnosed as having myopia (mostly on one eye) and got glasses. I refused to wear them most of the time, during that time I spent more time outdoor, looking further away and also develop an habit to stare at points far away whenever I'm thinking. Since I'm 25, whenever I do an eye test, they tell me that I have a very small amount of myopia on one eye but it's very small and I don't need gl…

Another anecdote: I developed myopia in high school and college, where it became progressively more difficult to read what was written on blackboards and transparency projectors. I resolutely refused to get glasses. By the time I got my first pair of glasses at 25, my prescription was around -3.25 in both eyes.

Wow, I wonder how you got by. I'm useless when I had -2 or -3 myopia: couldn't recognize people's faces, couldn't read signs. With -3 I think your computer screen even looks blurry.
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