low dose atropine for nearsighted kiddos

[CleverNickname 1321]

That Pfizer thread reminded me. My daughter was referred from the regular ole optometrist to the ophthalmologist. Her vision declined more than you'd like in a single year. Anyway, doc prescribed low dose atropine. Just a drop in each eye at bedtimes, takes like 30 seconds. A bit of a pain to get as it has to be ordered from a compounding pharmacy that can do eye drops. Not that expensive, ends up being about $1/day and its worked like a charm thus far - no change in 6 months. Of course the crazy thing is that you can get 5% solution at vets for pennies. It almost seems like virtually 100% of nearsighted kids could benefit from this, yet I haven't met any other parents who are aware. Makes me wonder if there is no real profit in it. 

https://www.ophthalmologytimes.com/ote-articles/low-dose-atropine-myopia-children-two-years-experience

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41433-018-0139-7

https://www.aao.org/eye-health/news/low-dose-atropine-kids-with-myopia

[Updawg 2276]

That's interesting and I'll have to check out those links. Having said that, I'm skeptical of anything fucking with eyes. Being blind would suck. I do trust opthalmologist s for the most part though.

[CooterBrown 18015]

My daughter went from like 20/80 to 20/200 in a year.  So, she started doing contacts that you wear to bed.  You wake up in the morning, take them out, and you have 20/20 vision, with no corrective lenses, for the entire day.  I'd never heard of that until she started using them over a year ago. 

 

[Jerry Callo 8707]

11 hours ago, CooterBrown said:

My daughter went from like 20/80 to 20/200 in a year.  So, she started doing contacts that you wear to bed.  You wake up in the morning, take them out, and you have 20/20 vision, with no corrective lenses, for the entire day.  I'd never heard of that until she started using them over a year ago. 

 

I suspect they are contacts to reshape the curvature of the eye over night.  Interesting.

[drt 640]

Nephew had those.  Worked great, wish they were a thing when I was a kid.

[CooterBrown 18015]

Just now, Jerry Callo said:

I suspect they are contacts to reshape the curvature of the eye over night.  Interesting.

That's exactly what they do.  The plan is to wear these until she's in her early 20s and then do Lasik to correct her vision.   I don't know if adults can use these or if it's only kids. She started it right before she turned 11. 

 

[gyroprotagonist 2594]

that's awesome on the contacts.  maybe 10 years ago I was at an optometrist and was sorta jokingly complaining that all they do is treat the symptoms for astigmatism and they needed to create something that would 're-plump' (my stupid words) the eyeball and make it more round again.

[You don't know me 1161]

On 6/5/2019 at 9:37 PM, CleverNickname said:

That Pfizer thread reminded me. My daughter was referred from the regular ole optometrist to the ophthalmologist. Her vision declined more than you'd like in a single year. Anyway, doc prescribed low dose atropine. Just a drop in each eye at bedtimes, takes like 30 seconds. A bit of a pain to get as it has to be ordered from a compounding pharmacy that can do eye drops. Not that expensive, ends up being about $1/day and its worked like a charm thus far - no change in 6 months. Of course the crazy thing is that you can get 5% solution at vets for pennies. It almost seems like virtually 100% of nearsighted kids could benefit from this, yet I haven't met any other parents who are aware. Makes me wonder if there is no real profit in it. 

https://www.ophthalmologytimes.com/ote-articles/low-dose-atropine-myopia-children-two-years-experience

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41433-018-0139-7

https://www.aao.org/eye-health/news/low-dose-atropine-kids-with-myopia

We put one of my boys on the atropine drops too.  So far, so good.