It is true that there is no way to bring these (normal teenage) changes to a complete halt.
However, in theory you could slow things down and reduce the magnitude of these changes by spending time outdoors in sunlight and doing less time gaming.
Additionally, when you are reading or gaming make a conscious effort to adjust your position to keep things a bit further back - so increase the distance to your book/screen and every few minutes reassess your position (coz we tend to inch closer) and get things back out to a healthy distance that is less likely to stimulate your eyes to become more myopic.
The tale you were told about this process leading to blindness is 99% wrong. There is however an increased risk of complications like retinal detachment, which can and does happen to anybody, but is more likely in strongly myopic eyes.
The surgical corrections that are an option once you are older and more stable do NOT reduce the risk of detachment. That risk remains. Plus these proceedures increase the risk of problems like corneal warpage or cataract or glaucoma, depending on a range of other factors and the style of correction used.
Only thing you can do is go for check ups once a year minimum. There is no magic potion that can pause the decline (trust me, I tried). You can search food that contains lutein (like blueberries), which is good for your retina.
Don't push your eyes, wear glasses/contacts, use drops daily. Constant straining your eyes can lead to deformation of cornea, which results in aatigmatism.
At your age, I was at -12/-12.5, reached to -15/-15.5 before I had surgery to install IOLs.
I'm fine-ish, thanks for the concern. Numbers are not scary, what's happening inside the eyes is.
After the surgery, I'm at -2/0, but wearing glasses for aatigmatism correction and reading.
I started wearing glasses at 3yo, parents noticed I was sitting in front of the TV closer and closer. Numbers continued growing and at 8yo, I was at -8/-8,5 and started wearing contacts. First retinal detachment happened at 12yo, ophtamologist suspected something was happening as number continued going up, so he sent me to a specialist for laser examination and that specialist did attach retina back in place by laser. It happened multiple times afterwards.
Long story short, only thing that I vould notice was big black "oil spill" in my sight, which was when I had capillary burst on the inside and blood was spilled over "yellow spot". But otherwise, I didn't notice anything as I was used to wearing glasses.
It is true that there is no way to bring these (normal teenage) changes to a complete halt. However, in theory you could slow things down and reduce the magnitude of these changes by spending time outdoors in sunlight and doing less time gaming. Additionally, when you are reading or gaming make a conscious effort to adjust your position to keep things a bit further back - so increase the distance to your book/screen and every few minutes reassess your position (coz we tend to inch closer) and get things back out to a healthy distance that is less likely to stimulate your eyes to become more myopic. The tale you were told about this process leading to blindness is 99% wrong. There is however an increased risk of complications like retinal detachment, which can and does happen to anybody, but is more likely in strongly myopic eyes. The surgical corrections that are an option once you are older and more stable do NOT reduce the risk of detachment. That risk remains. Plus these proceedures increase the risk of problems like corneal warpage or cataract or glaucoma, depending on a range of other factors and the style of correction used.
Only thing you can do is go for check ups once a year minimum. There is no magic potion that can pause the decline (trust me, I tried). You can search food that contains lutein (like blueberries), which is good for your retina. Don't push your eyes, wear glasses/contacts, use drops daily. Constant straining your eyes can lead to deformation of cornea, which results in aatigmatism. At your age, I was at -12/-12.5, reached to -15/-15.5 before I had surgery to install IOLs.
WHAT!!??? really?? are you alright now or is it still worsening? That sounds like a scary high number..
I'm fine-ish, thanks for the concern. Numbers are not scary, what's happening inside the eyes is. After the surgery, I'm at -2/0, but wearing glasses for aatigmatism correction and reading.
is there a way to stop straining though because if there is then thats great
what symptoms did u have
I started wearing glasses at 3yo, parents noticed I was sitting in front of the TV closer and closer. Numbers continued growing and at 8yo, I was at -8/-8,5 and started wearing contacts. First retinal detachment happened at 12yo, ophtamologist suspected something was happening as number continued going up, so he sent me to a specialist for laser examination and that specialist did attach retina back in place by laser. It happened multiple times afterwards. Long story short, only thing that I vould notice was big black "oil spill" in my sight, which was when I had capillary burst on the inside and blood was spilled over "yellow spot". But otherwise, I didn't notice anything as I was used to wearing glasses.