Myopia Control

Helping Your Child’s Vision Function at Its Best

While myopia can seem insignificant, it can worsen as your child grows, affecting their eye health and vision. Myopia progression can lead to several eye health complications, making treatment an important part of your child’s eye care.

Visit our practice in Saskatoon, and we can care for your child’s vision, helping it function at its best. Our team can help correct and control myopia with innovative treatments.

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What Is Myopia?

Myopia (nearsightedness) is a refractive error where distant images appear blurry and close-up images appear clear. Approximately 30% of Canadians have myopia, typically developing this condition in childhood.

Myopia progresses as your child grows, potentially causing a mild case of this condition to become a more severe form. Severe myopia is known as high myopia, which increases your child’s risk of eye diseases like glaucoma and cataracts.

Because myopia typically develops at a young age, your child may not realize they have a vision problem. Knowing when to take your child for an eye exam can help identify myopia early in its development.

Some myopia symptoms to watch out for in your child include:

Blinking excessively
Needing to sit close to the television or in front of the classroom
Rubbing their eyes frequently
Seeming unaware of distant objects
Squinting consistently

What Causes Myopia?

Patients with myopia have unique eyes that are too long or their cornea is too steep. The shape of the eye causes incoming light to focus in front of the retina when it should focus directly on the retina instead. Blurry vision occurs because of how light bends when it enters the eye.

Other factors can affect myopia development, including:

How We Treat Myopia

Specialized treatments can help slow myopia progression, protecting your child’s vision and eye health. Each patient’s vision needs are different, so we offer several myopia control treatments at our practice.

We have a treatment to help manage your child’s myopia, whether with eye drops, glasses, or contact lenses.

Atropine Eye Drops

Atropine eye drops help relax the eye. These eye drops temporarily freeze the muscles in the eye responsible for focusing, helping slow myopic progression. While atropine can help control myopia progression, your child will likely also need glasses or contact lenses to improve their vision.

MiSight Contact Lenses

MiSight contact lenses are disposable lenses your child replaces daily, making them ideal for children new to contacts. These lenses can slow myopia progression by up to 59% in children.

Like a bulls-eye, these contacts have a central area helping correct your child’s vision, while the surrounding rings of the lens alternate between areas of vision correction and myopia control.

MiyoSmart Glasses

MiyoSmart glasses feature defocus incorporated multiple segments (DIMS) technology to help correct and control myopia. A centre zone in the lens helps correct your child’s vision, while ring-shaped zones surround the lens centre to help slow myopia progression. MiyoSmart glasses can help slow myopia progression by up to 60%.

Protecting & Preserving Your Child’s Vision

We understand the effect myopia can have on your child’s vision. However, early action can help protect their vision from strong prescriptions in adulthood. Myopia control treatments can help slow myopic progression and safeguard your child’s sight.