Reasoning behind nearsighted child wearing glasses for reading?!


Question:

Reasoning behind nearsighted child wearing glasses for reading?

Two of my sons were recently prescribed glasses for myopia. One child has a prescription of -1.00 and the other of -1.25. The eye doctor said they should wear their glasses when in the classroom, reading, playing video games, or watching tv/movies. I can't understand why someone who can see fine up close would need to wear their glasses to read or watch tv.


Answers:

it depends on the patient. some are "better off" with them on and some are better off with them off.

some nearsighted kids definitely need their glasses ON to read even tho they have good acuity up close w/o them on. most of the time its b/c of binocularity/fusion/comfort issues.

3 things happen when you look at something up close:

1) focus (accommodate) for that distance
2) converge (cross eyes and aim) for that distance
3) pupil gets smaller (miosis)

you cannot focus w/o converging
you cannot converge w/o focusing

so sometimes if the patient is nearsighted and does not need to actively focus to have good acuity up close, then even if they have good acuity up close, they wont accurately converge...they UNDER converge. so while they see clearly up close w/o glasses, sometimes they can still get headaches/eyestrain from NOT wearing their nearsighted glasses b/c they have inaccurate convergence. this is not always the case, but it definitely is sometimes.

so, it varies by patient. but it could certainly make sense for the doc to recommend full time glasses wear in a lightly-myopic patient for binocularity or "teaming" purposes.

under-convergence has been theorized to be ONE of the factors influencing myopia progression...




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