Myopia is normal, right? It’s not that big of a deal. It seems like everyone has it. When I was given my first pair of glasses, I remember how miraculous it was to look out of Dr. Tucker’s office window at the shopping mall across the street; things went from OK to miraculous in an instant. All I needed was a simple pair of glasses and my eyesight was spectacular. My story is the same as that of many practitioners who entered into this field.

If you are a myope, many of you likely went through a similar evolution. Some of you progressed, and some did not. Some became high myopes and experience the impact that this has on our lives. And still others see their myopia as a nuisance or an inconvenience.

As our patients progress and get older, they invariably end up with cataracts, and we have to walk them through the surgical process. We target these patients’ low myopia or emmetropia and may never think twice about their future myopia. Now, I have started noticing something, and I am sure that you have as well. If you start looking back at the refractive error of your patients who have glaucoma, macular disease, or retinal disease, you may be surprised to find how many of them are/were high myopes (Flitcroft, 2012).

We don’t often think about it, but that small 6-year-old sitting in your examination chair may be 80 years old some day. While we will invariably see improvements in our healthcare systems over the next seven decades, we need to do everything that we can do now for this future 80-year-old.

Active or Passive

Your practice manages myopia. Whether you are a proactive manager or a passive manager, you are doing something. Regular eyeglasses have not been shown to slow the progression of myopia. Soft spherical contact lenses have also not been shown to slow the progression. If these are your myopia correction methods, you are a passive manager. It is time to proactively manage the progressive condition that your patients have.

Keep Learning

We have seen the benefits of bringing myopia management into our practice in more ways than one. Parents who are myopes are looking for this. Many of them have come to hate the high amounts of myopia that they personally have, and they desperately want an alternative option for their offspring.

While this subgroup of patients is small, it is growing. A growing number are hearing about options and desperately want to hear more. Who better to bring up the options than practitioners? Who better to present the risk factors to help make them aware of what is on the horizon than eyecare providers?

Now is the time to bring myopia management into your office. Publications, websites, and meetings are popping up everywhere that highlight how to go about implementing myopia management into your practice. Learn all that you can about various treatment methods such as atropine, orthokeratology, and multifocal contact lenses. Stay tuned for additional methods coming soon that will shake up our practices and the industry. CLS

For references, please visit www.clspectrum.com/references and click on document #301.