Myopia: A Modern yet Reversible Disease

> "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.

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)

Be sure to get checks regularly and practice extra good eye hygiene, because they do have a higher risk of infections, also eye doctors do not recommend them.

Biggest drawback I experience are coronas around bright lights at night, but you do get used to them. I can conformably drive a car at night, because the sight is sharp. The extend also varies from person to person.

If you can tolerate the lenses with your eyes open, you can also already wear them in the evening if you need perfect sight in low light.

On topic: you cannot permanently reverse myopia, but it gets better when you get older for some people.

Ortho-K lenses can however be used by children to stop myopia from getting worse.

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.

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 usually when my prescription changed before it was -0.25 in one eye or the other, and I could still read mostly ok, just after a long day my eyes were tired. They insisted it was correct, so I ordered the glasses but when I got them I couldn't read a computer screen for more than 15 minutes without lots of eye strain. I went back to them, they tested my eyes again and said everything was fine and I just need to get used to it... Right.

After that I went to an eye hospital where they do laser surgery as they do much more extensive testing. They said my eyes were perfectly healthy, but the issue was the that the prescription opticians gave me was for distance use, not for computer use. I was a bit flabbergasted at first - you are telling me for the last 18 years opticians have been giving me the wrong prescription?!?! They suggested -3.25 for computer use, and to keep my old -3.75 glasses for driving. Sure enough, I can see computer screens perfectly fine with these glasses and no eye strain.

I recall reading that one of the causes for myopia, from an environmental and habit perspective, is reading in low light. Having sufficient lighting available reduces the strain on the eyes and could prevent or reduce the development of myopia. You could perhaps look at increasing the lighting when you read printed papers or reading them in a natural sunlit environment with hardly any shadows.

Edit: eventually found this: https://losetheglasses.org/cliffgnu-vision.pdf

Now granted I spent most of my time growing up playing on the computer and reading - but I was wearing my glasses the whole time so year by year it got worse. Eye doctors say “oh youre just growing into your eyes” when they know that’s not the case. Look at how many children have (pseudo)-myopia due to growing up with smartphones and tablets 24/7. It’s not hard to figure out.

Now I don’t think there’s an exact science to curing myopia but at the very least everyone should practice the 20/20/20 rule and wear their distance glasses as little as possible. Just those 2 things can save you from developing pseudomyopia.