Prescription eye drops formulated to reduce myopia progression
Myopia Prescription Eye Drops
Dr. Rupa Wong was the first in Hawaii to prescribe low dose atropine drops for her patients and has been using it since 2014. Low dose atropine drops are a treatment strategy that may slow your child’s nearsightedness. Atropine is an eye drop which is commonly used to enlarge the pupil of the eye (dilation). However, in 2011, researchers discovered that if the atropine eye drops were diluted to 10/100th or 1/50th of its regular concentration they could effectively slow the progression of myopia kids aged 5-13 years. The drops are applied at night before bed and your child wears their usual glasses or contact lenses during the day. The exact mechanism of how low dose atropine slows myopia is unknown.
Atropine is FDA-approved as a treatment for conditions including lazy eye, but not for myopia. Using this drop for a child’s nearsightedness is considered an off-label use of the medication, meaning FDA studies have not been performed for the purpose of decreasing nearsightedness. However, atropine drops have been routinely used by eye doctors for decades with minimal side effects.
Study after study has demonstrated the effectiveness of the atropine treatment to slow the progression of myopia in children. Many of these landmark studies were conducted in Singapore, with a population similar to what we have here in Hawaii, making the results easily applicable.
There are several concentrations of atropine which have been studied – 0.01%, 0.025% and 0.05%. These drops must be specially mixed under sterile conditions at a compounded pharmacy and are not available at your local pharmacy. Dr. Wong will assess the growth of your child’s eye and determine which concentration is best to slow your child’s myopia.
F.A.Q.
Treatment typically lasts a minimum of 2 years. Progress visits will be scheduled every 6 months to check the length of the eye and prescription of the contacts/glasses. Adjustments will be made to the treatment accordingly for your child.
At Honolulu Eye Clinic, we spend a lot of time training kids on contact lens care. We find that the responsibility of wearing and caring for contact lenses is more dependent upon how responsible your child is versus their age. Many younger kids view wearing contacts as a privilege and most are even more compliant about how they care for them than our teenaged patients! In fact, with the increased parent supervision required for younger kids to wear contacts, the children in the original MiSight® study had no cases of microbial keratitis.
With hundreds of children now in myopia management using the treatments at Honolulu Eye Clinic, Dr. Wong and Bossert are the most experienced doctors in Hawaii. They will discuss the specifics of your child’s nearsightedness, as well as expectations, at the initial consultation.
Several studies have shown the benefits of outdoor time at slowing myopic progression. Being outdoors in the sunlight is protective. Kids who spent 1-2 hours/day outdoors, were on average a whole diopter less nearsighted than their peers who did not. That would mean -3.00 prescription instead of a -4.00 prescription. And, the more time kids spent indoors on devices made their myopia worse. Decreasing screen time and increasing outdoor time is beneficial.
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