Myopia

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Myopia is a vision problem that has an effect on about one-third of the population. This condition often sets in at childhood and is one that many of your family and friends suffer from everyday. Even I experience it everyday. However, myopia is normally not life-threatening or even hazardous to your health. Myopia is nothing more than nearsightedness.

Myopia occurs because of the shape of the eyeball. Instead of a `normal' shaped eyeball, the myopic eyeball is slightly longer. This results in light rays focusing in front of the retina, instead of directly on it. Because the image is focused directly in front of the retina, objects that are close up appear clear while objects in the distance are blurry.

Myopia is thought by most professionals to be mainly caused by genetics. Donald Mutti, lead author of the study and Ohio State University's associate professor of optometry, conducted a study based on 366 eighth-graders' current prescriptions, their parents' prescriptions and test scores in basic reading language skills. He says myopia follows a dose-dependent pattern. This means that the probability that a child will develop myopia increases significantly based on the number of myopic parents the child has. However, he also says that a child with two myopic parents will not necessarily develop myopia. This shows that this dose-dependent pattern is not a straightforward inheritance pattern.

Others think that the amount of time a child studies and reads has a lesser role in the development of nearsightedness. Interestingly enough, the amount of time that a child watches television and plays video games had little, if any, effect on the development of myopia (H&M WEEK). In fact, the study showed that myopic children studied ...

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...ical condition that can easily be corrected. Whether one chooses a simple solution such as glasses or contact lenses or opts for a more complicated answer such as surgery or implantable contact lenses is entirely up to the individual. Based on what I've researched, I feel that corneal refractory therapy is an easy and reasonably safe way to not only cure the symptoms, but also permanently correct your vision.

Bibliography

Bailey, Gretchyn, and Judith Lee. Myopia or Nearsightedness. 6 May 2003 http://www.allaboutvision.com/conditions/myopia.htm

"Myopia; Genes are main culprit in development of myopia." Health & Medicine Week. 31 Mar. 2003: 3.

"Myopia; Investigator reports 99.4% patient satisfaction for implantable contact lens." Medical Devices & Surgical Technology Week. 18 May 2003: 53.

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