Myopia can be reversed: My journey to reduce my child eye numbers
We were sitting at the airport waiting to board our flight when I asked my 6 year old daughter to read the sign board at a distance. She had started reading well by that age so I was taken aback when she was unable to read the sign board at that moment. While I could read the board easily, she couldn't. Can she be myopic? At this early age? I asked her to move forwards 2 steps and try. Still nothing. She took 4 more steps forward and told me what was written there. It was clear we had got some problem in her eyesight. I came back home and got her tested. Her first prescription was - (Right: -1.5 -0.5 180, Left: -1.25 -0.5 180)
She was wearing glasses regularly but her numbers kept increasing every year. By the time she was 9.5 yrs her prescription became - (Right: -4.25 -1.25 180, Left: -4.25 -1.25 170). According to the doctors that we visited, the number was increasing because her eye balls were growing with age. And that it was a usual trend in children and there is nothing that anyone can do about it!! My worry skyrocketed - at this rate, by the time she is 18, she will reach around -10 in both eyes which I knew would be a risky situation as it might lead to blindness.
With doctors offering nothing helpful and having a nonchalant attitude, I started researching on internet. I found many articles / videos offering solutions claiming to reverse the myopia but nothing was backed up by science and did not have any proven track record. So I did nothing and the life went on.
One day I stumbled across an article that was a proven, measured track record of eye improvement and seemed genuine. This was convincing enough for me to start a full research on the EndMyopia website. Soon I found out that there is a whole community of people who have reduced their numbers gradually to zero and that there are many scientific studies that support the rationale behind endmyopia method. Gosh, did I found out a treasure trove! Seemed so. After reading through many articles and experiences of many practitioners (people following endmyopia method and documenting their own progress), I started implementing the method on my daughter in July 2022. Got her tested in Feb. 2023 and the results (documented below) showed real progress, enough to force me to write this article so that anyone wanting to undertake this journey has a simplified roadmap to guide them.
What is EndMyopia method?
Disclaimer: Following is just a bird eye's view of the whole process explained in a bit over-simplified language. Develop your own understanding and intuition by going through various articles on the EndMyopia website and various discussions on EndMyopia forums and groups.
Listed down here are the base premises of this method -
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Myopia is caused by hours of sustained near work (like reading books, watching mobile etc for hours at a time). So the first and the most important change is to modify the lifestyle. My daughter was spending too much time reading books and playing games on mobile and laptop. So we gradually reduced her mobile usage to zero and encouraged her to change her habits. For eg: instead of playing games on mobile, watch a serial on TV or go outside and play. We inceased her outdoor time gradually.
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Near work when done with glasses (which are meant for distance viewing) makes your myopia worse. So EndMyopia recommends to get 2 sets of glasses -
- one for near work (reading a book, watching screens, etc) called 'Differentials' in EndMyopia world.
- One for distance viewing (everything else other than reading, writing, and watching screens) called 'Normalised' in EndMyopia world.
Now the question is what should be the lens power of these 2 sets?
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Eyes use muscles to focus on an object and 'see'. To make these muscles stronger, a little workout is needed which happens when we wear slightly under prescribed glasses (slightly less power than prescribed). Below is a rough guide (Do your research yourself before ordering any reduced prescriptions as things may differ on a case by case basis) -
- Wear Normalised (distance viewing glasses) with 0.25 - 0.5 Diopters less power than prescribed.
- Wear Differentials (near work glasses) with 1.5 - 2 Diopters less power than prescribed.
- Example: If you got prescribed -2.5D in Right and -2.0 D in Left, then for Normalised you would wear lenses of -2.25D in Right and -1.75D in Left. Similarly, for Differentials, you would wear lenses of -1.0D in Right and -0.5D in Left.
- Measure your own eyes rather than blindly agreeing to the measurements done by someone else - This means daily measurements with eye charts (snellen charts) at your own home to track your progress and develop intuition around the process. So get a printout of a snellen chart, stick it at a place where you get a good amount of natural light, stand at the correct distance and measure both eyes separately. Keep a log to track your journey. You can download the Snellen eye charts here
- Take frequent breaks from near work and do Active Focus - Take frequent 2-3 min breaks from near work (every 20 minutes or so) and focus on a very far away object out of the window or your balcony. This is to give your eye muscles a chance to relax from the strains of continuous near work. Look (at the chosen far-away object which is slightly blurry to you), relax, blink, look again. Repeat. This process is called active focus and sometimes, it will magically clear that blur and pulls the object into a sharp focus for a second or two. Active focus is a key element in giving the right nudge to your eye muscles.
- If you do all this for 2-3 months , you will most probably find (by your own measurement or through an optometrist) that your eye has adjusted to the reduced prescription i.e. You see 20/20 with the reduced prescription. In that case you reduce a further 0.25 Diopters in both sets and continue the same process for another 2-3 months.
These are the most fundamental parts of the process but there are a lot of tiny details too which are very very important to remember while implementing this method like Not changing Differentials and Normalised together and keeping a gap of 3 weeks between the two changes. I am not going to list them all here as it will be of no use to you until you understand the purpose behind each. Gratefully, some people have documneted their mistakes as well to help others get up the path quickly. A big thanks to such a beautiful gesture! I encourage you to do your own research and make a mental image of the process rather than blindly following some over-simplified steps. These steps are more like footprints of my journey so far. Your journey will differ based on your prescription and situation.
Hope this helps you improve your eyesight to the point when you no longer need glasses.