Myopia

1.Why myopic eyes cannot see well on distant objects?
Because  the focusing point falls in front of the retina （ Fig.1）

Fig.1. Focusing point ( arrowhead) in front of retina
(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

2. How to make the poor vision normal?
By moving the focusing point backward to hit the retina with a. Negative lens( Fig.2),b. laser corneal surgery(LASIK) (Fig.3); c. Ortho-K lens( Fig.4)

Fig. 2 Ngative lens Fig. 3 Laser corneal surgery Fig. 4 Ortho-K lens

3. The five stages in myopia development
1）Premyopic status: the distant vision becomes blurred for more  less than 30 seconds immediately after sustained  close work.
2) Transient myopia: the distant vision becomes blurred for more than30 seconds immediately after sustained  close work.
3) Preclinical myopia: The distant vision declined  but still in normal range like20/20 . There is no name yet available for this condition in  literature.  Preclinical myopia is temporarily  used here .
4) Refractive myopia: the vision is bellow 20/20 but the eyeballs have  not elongated yet.
 5) Axial (authentic) myopia: the vision is bellow 20/20 with the eyeballs elongated. Both refractive and axial myopia belong to clinical myopia.
II. The Treatment of Myopia
1. What is the difference between Western and TCM treatments?
Western medicine treatments are to move the focusing point backward to the retina with one of the three methods mentioned above. The results are the ( corrected ) vision gets better but myopia may get worse. For example, the naked vision will be  lower after 1 year of glasses wearing and usually worse  year after year. The eye glasses become thicker and thicker. This indicates a progressive deterioration in the eye conditions since the pathology of the myopia is not controlled by such treatments. These treatments are called “zhibiao” (treating the symptoms) in TCM terms.
TCM treatments do not use external force to change the shape of the cornea but control the pathology of myopia. In so doing, the vision increase is a result of improvement of the myopia. This is called “zhiben“(removing the root of the problem) in TCM terms.
2. How to possibly cure children’s myopia?
Get treatments at 3 early stages: transient, preclinical and refractive myopia. These 3 stages are the best opportunity to possibly cure  early myopia. The vision increase may be seen after 1 or 2 treatments. And the improved vision may last 6 months or longer without further treatment when the treatment  starts  at the preclinical myopia  stage. So far we have seen a kid who’s normal vision has been kept for 7 years. His treatments started at early refractive myopia stage． If all the 3 types of  early myopia are cured or well controlled , the axial myopia because of them  will not take place and its incidence will dramatically drop as a result. Unfortunately, in the past, majority of myopic kids missed these opportunities--golden opportunities to cure myopia.
The advantages of the early treatments:
a. Vision increase can be seen faster, or right after the first treatment  in some cases;
b. The improved vision is much easier to be kept;
c. Higher chance to be cured;
d. Saving time and money.
3. Acupuncture for axial myopia
1) Improving naked vision: If the vision is 20/30 naked and 20/13 with glasses, after acupuncture treatments the naked vision can be 20/20 or better, and there is no need for glasses any more. Often times, the kids lose their glasses since they put them away instead of wearing them. Some kid had  the naked vision of  20/100 two years before. After 2yrs of intermittent acupuncture treatments, it was 20/40, indicating the eyes were protected.
2) Improving corrected vision: If the vision is 20/30 with glasses and need to add more dioptors to see 20/20. After acupuncture treatment the 20/20 can be reached without  change of glasses. If the vision is 20/13 with -2.0D , after acupuncture treatment  the same vision may be obtained with -1.5D.
3) Reducing myopia deterioration: During acupuncture treatments, with the increase or stabilization of naked vision, the annual deterioration of the myopia slows down. For example, some myopic kid had an -1.25D ( - is a symbol of lens shape ) added to her glasses in the year prior to acupuncture treatments and the addition became - 0.75D in the next year during which the treatments were done.
4) Possibly curing  axial myopia:
Reaches found that eyes with induced myopia had the ability to recover from the imposed refractive error in both avian and mammalian models of myopia (Wallman J,et al. Vision Res. 1987;27:1139–1163. Norton TT. Ciba Found Symp. 1990;155:178–199).  A study  in school of optometry, Australia demonstrated that animal’s myopia   quickly disappeared if no corrective lenses were  worn, otherwise (corrective lenses were worn), the myopia remained (McBrien NA, et al. Optom Vis Sci. 1999 Jun;76(6):419-27) .  This discovery was confirmed by a research in School of Optometry, UC Berkley (C. F. Wildsoet  and K. L. Schmid. Vision Research Volume 40, Issue 23, January 2000, Pages 3273-3282 ).
These researches show 3 requirements for the recovery of the axial myopia: 1) No corrective lenses worn; 2) No overloaded near work; 3) The eyeballs are in a plastic stage.
It is believed  that if these 3 requirements are met in children, their axial myopia should be able to be cured as well. In clinic some kids with mild axial myopia achieved normal naked vision of  1.2, 1.5, even 2.0 ( equal 20/15, 20/13, and 20/10 on Snellen chart) after acupuncture treatments. Clinically, they are not myopic any more.
5）Combination of  Ortho-K(OK) lenses with acupuncture is  more beneficial:
i) Improving vision during treatment: If vision can not be normal by wearing the OK lenses in the night, the vision can be increased by combined acupuncture treatment.  Some kids have 20/40- vision during OK lens wearing and the vision advanced to  20/15 after acupuncture treatments, which is a 4-line increase.
ii) Improving vision in the no-lens-wearing period: some kids have normal vision like 20/20 (Snellen eye chart equivalents) if wearing the OK lenses last night. The vision will drop to 20/130 if no OK lens for one night. After acupuncture treatments, the vision can be 20/30 if no OK lens for 2 nights, or 20/40 if no OK lens for 7 nights which is still  much better than 20/130. This is due to the improvement of the myopic condition by acupuncture treatments.
 4. Acupuncture for adult myopia:

  1. Improving corrected vision: some adult myopias have corrected vision 20/20 ( with -5.0D) , which is improved to 20/13 after acupuncture treatment. After further treatment the corrected vision is still 20/13 when a + 0.5D attached to the -5.0D lens. The maximum lens power reduction so for we  have observed is 1.75 D.
  2. Improving retinal health:  It has been experimentally and clinically demonstrated that acupuncture can improve blood circulation and oxygen supply and, therefore, provides protection  to hypoxic retina of the myopic eyes.

5. Chinese herbs for  myopia:

      There are many kinds of Chinese herbs that may help the eye  and retina in different ways such as: improving circulation and oxygen supply,  down-regulating VEGF, Promoting cell health and protecting  them against apoptosis and so on. It is reported that about 30% of high myopia may have retinal problems including macular degeneration. Once this happens, the vision drops substantially and  eye glasses do not help any longer. Taking the herbs in advance  may prevent or reduce the incidence  of this severe blinding eye problem. Our Chinese herb extract composition from a patented formula has been clinically proven to be effective for both dry and wet forms of macular degenerations with about 88% of patients gaining vision by 2 lines or more.