Uploaded: 2024-02-12T06:46:38Z
Channel: Diamond Certified Resource

SAN BRUNO — Host, Sarah Rutan: If you or your children suffer from Myopia, or nearsightedness, it&#8217;s important to know your options so that you can keep your eyes from getting worse. Today we’re in San Bruno with Diamond Certified Expert Contributor Dr. Thomas Aller to learn more.
Diamond Certified Expert Contributor, Dr. Thomas Aller: Previously it was thought that with nearsightedness, or myopia, once a child gets nearsighted they just get worse and worse. There&#8217;s nothing you can do about it, and that is how nearsightedness is treated by most doctors all around the world.
There&#8217;s been a revolution lately over the last five to 10 years certainly, and we found that there are, indeed, things that can be done to keep eyes from getting worse and worse. There are four different ways that this can be done with all with good research behind it.
One technique is to use certain types of eyeglasses, bifocals. They&#8217;re especially effective for certain types of kids, but that can be determined during an eye exam. The research that I&#8217;ve done has to do with bifocal contact lenses. Bifocal contact lenses slow down nearsightedness by 50 to 90% as been shown in multiple studies all around the world.
Then there&#8217;s orthokeratology, which is an exciting technology where you wear a contact lens while you&#8217;re sleeping. You take it off in the morning and you can see without them. So, kids really like that. They can swim and do sports and don&#8217;t have to worry about anything. But what&#8217;s really interesting about that technique is kids that wear that type of lens when they take them off, their vision doesn&#8217;t worsen as quickly also. So, that&#8217;s been shown to slow down nearsightedness by 50%. So, in the same range as bifocal contacts, although sometimes one works better than the other.
And there is a treatment using an eye drop called atropine. I don&#8217;t use that that often. It&#8217;s being done very frequently in Asia. What&#8217;s really fascinating about atropine, which is an eye drop that dilates the pupil, is they found that if you use super-low doses, it actually works very well and has very low side effect, but I don&#8217;t use it that often. But there are ways to stop kids&#8217; eyes from getting worse and worse.
Host, Sarah Rutan: To learn more from local top-rated companies, visit our Diamond Certified Expert Reports at experts.diamondcertified.org

with Dr. Thomas Aller of {BR} Dr. Thomas A. Aller Optometrist

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