Dry Eye Blog

How to Limit Your Child's Screen Time?

While unlimited time with electronics may keep your child busy, you don't want them to have too much screentime. That said, setting limits on TV and video games for kids isn't always easy in today's screen-filled world. Here are 10 tips parents can use to decide how much screentime is reasonable for their kids.

• Model Healthy Electronic Use
• Educate Yourself on Electronics
• Create “Technology-Free Zones”
• Set Aside Times to Unplug
• Use Parental Controls
• Explain Why You're Limiting Screen Time
• Ask for Your Child’s Passwords
• Encourage Other Activities
• Make Screen Time a Privilege
• Keep Your Child’s Bedroom Screen-Free

What Lens Can Be Used For Myopia Control?

Orthokeratology (Ortho-K)

Orthokeratology, also known as ortho-k, is a corneal reshaping lens. These durable and rigid contact lenses help control and correct myopia. They gently reshape the cornea overnight, allowing your child to see clearly throughout the day without needing corrective eyewear.

Ortho-k contact lenses flatten the centre of the cornea to change how light bends as it enters the eye, correcting your child’s vision. These lenses are safe and effective—2018 research discovered these contacts can slow myopia progression by 36–56% in children.

MiSight and Abiliti Contact Lenses

MiSight contact lenses and more recently Abiliti contact lenses have a unique design specialized for children with myopia. They’re disposable lenses your child replaces daily, making them easy and safe to use for even younger children. These lenses can help correct and control myopia by creating myopic defocus, a technique to change how the eye focuses light.

The lens centre helps correct your child’s vision, and contains different types of myopia treatment zones to help focus light in front of the retina instead of behind the retina, shifting your child’s focal point of vision and tricking the eye into not growing.

Soft daily myopia control contact lenses can help slow myopia progression by up to 59% in children.

SightGlass

SightGlass is a new way to help control and correct myopia in children. These eyeglasses feature thousands of micro-dots in the lens, helping scatter light and reduce contrast on the retina (D.O.T. technology).  2020 research found these glasses slowed myopia progression in 85% of the children in the study, with myopia progressing less than a dioptre.  This may be the best available lens option for younger age groups (especially <8 years old) and Foresee Eyecare is recognized as an authorized site that specializes in prescribing this lens.

MiyoSmart Glasses

MiyoSmart glasses can help your child see better while slowing myopic progression. These glasses utilize defocus incorporated multiple segments (D.I.M.S.) technology to help images focus in front of the retina instead of behind the retina, known as myopic defocus.

A MiyoSmart lens features a central zone for correcting myopia. Additionally, it has several ring-shaped zones surrounding the lens to slow myopia progression. 2019 research found that the DIMS technology used in MiyoSmart lenses can help slow myopia progression by up to 60% in children over 2 years.

Stellest Lenses

Stellest lenses feature H.A.L.T. technology to help correct and control your child’s myopia. These lenses have tons of tiny lenses (known as lenslets), which help slow down myopia progression. When worn 12 hours a day, Stellest lenses can slow myopia by up to 67%.

Modern genetic testing is truly incredible. Today, we can screen for genetic diseases and begin treatment much earlier than in the past, allowing many potentially affected individuals the chance to enjoy a higher quality of life.

One of the leading corneal genetic disorders today is keratoconus, a condition that impacts millions of Americans every year. This is a condition in which the cornea bulges outward into a cone shape. According to the Cornea Research Foundation of America, keratoconus affects 54.5 per 100,000 people. A person with keratoconus may experience a number of vision related issues including but not limited to:

• Blurry or Cloudy Vision
• Light Sensitivity
• Double Vision

What Does AvaGen Genetic Testing Screen for Exactly?

AvaGen Genetic Testing looks at over 75 genes and 2,000 variants. It is designed to put the risk of keratoconus and other corneal disorders into perspective based on actual data. One of the best parts about this type of testing is that It’s personalized which means that it focuses on your unique genetics.

Switching from glasses to scleral contact lenses can take some time and adjustment. Scleral lenses are larger than traditional contact lenses and are designed to correct more severe vision problems, such as keratoconus and severe dry eye. Unlike traditional contact lenses, scleral lenses are filled with a solution before being placed on the eye, which can take some getting used to.

It's not uncommon for it to take a few weeks to adjust to scleral lenses, as the larger size and filling solution can feel foreign to the eye at first. The eye doctor will provide instructions on how to properly insert, remove, and care for the lenses, as well as how to monitor for any potential complications.

What is a Cataract?

A cataract is a dense, cloudy area that forms in the lens of the eye. A cataract begins when proteins in the eye form clumps that prevent the lens from sending clear images to the retina. The retina works by converting the light that comes through the lens into signals. It sends the signals to the optic nerve, which carries them to the brain.

It develops slowly and eventually interferes with your vision. You might end up with cataracts in both eyes, but they usually don’t form at the same time. Cataracts are common in older people. Over half of people in the United States have cataracts or have undergone cataract surgery by the time they’re 80 years old, according to the National Eye InstituteTrusted Source.

Keratoconus is when the cornea thins out and bulges like a cone. Changing the shape of the cornea brings light rays out of focus. As a result, your vision is blurry and distorted, making daily tasks like reading or driving difficult.