HYDERABAD: Myopia or short sightedness occurs when light entering the eye focuses in front of the retina instead of a direct focus on it.
This is caused by a cornea that is steeper, or an eye that is longer, than a normal eye, Dr Syed Jamil Ahmed said while talking to this agency on Tuesday.
Eye specialist Dr Syed Jamil Ahmed said that this is fairly common worldwide and approximately 25 per cent of the western population is myopic to some degree but such occurrences are much higher in certain Asian countries.
Taiwan experiences the world’s highest rate, Dr Jamil Ahmed said, adding that myopia is often discovered in school-age children who report having trouble seeing the chalkboard, and myopia usually becomes progressively worse through adolescence and stabilises in early adulthood.
He said that children younger than age 8 or 9 may not realise that they have trouble seeing objects far away.
He said that nearsightedness may be corrected with glasses, contact lenses or eye surgery and the refractive surgery can eliminate their need for glasses or contacts, added.
Dr Jamil said myopic people often have headaches or eyestrain and might squint or feel fatigued when driving or playing sports though this is not directly caused by myopia itself, but rather by a combination of astigmatism and myopia or simply because the person is straining to see clearly.
He said that myopia affects those mostly between the ages of 10 and 40 and beyond 45 years of age myopia tends to decrease.
He said that people with myopia have four main options, eyeglasses, contact lenses and for those who meet certain criteria and refractive eye surgery.
He further said that people who find glasses and contact lenses inconvenient or uncomfortable, and who meet selection criteria regarding age, degree of myopia, general health and the refractive eye surgery is a third treatment alternative.
He said that Lasik is also one of the famous and popular kinds of laser-based refractive surgery and in Lasik treatment, the surgeon will cut a flap from the top part of the cornea and with the help of laser remove some corneal tissues. Once the process is done, then again the surgeon will put back the flap at its original place, Dr Jamil elaborated.
He said that if a patient is afraid to undergo surgery then there are several non-surgical processes in which patient will be given a special type of contact lenses and these contact lenses have the power to re-shape the cornea within some period of time.