Myopia and presbyopia

I believe that most of us or the people we come into contact with in life suffer from the eye problem of myopia. The main reason for the increasing myopia rate among modern people is the popularity of electro-optical and electronic products. Presbyopia is also a common eye problem, which is very common among the elderly. Unlike myopia, it is mainly a type of farsightedness. So if a person suffers from both myopia and presbyopia, what should he do?

Electronic products are the culprit

"Such young presbyopia patients were rare cases in the past, but starting from six or seven years ago, we have confirmed six cases of presbyopia patients under the age of 40 in the most in one month." Lian Jingcai, professor of ophthalmology at Tongji University School of Medicine and director of Shanghai New Vision Zhongxing Eye Hospital, said that in recent years, the incidence of presbyopia has indeed shown a clear trend of becoming younger.

In the past, there was a saying among the people that "whether you have presbyopia or not, you should be 48", which means that 48 is the threshold for presbyopia. However, it is understood that in the ophthalmology clinics of major hospitals in Shanghai, more and more presbyopia patients in their 30s seek medical treatment.

Why is presbyopia becoming younger? Lian Jingcai believes that in addition to some congenital reasons, the main external cause is the excessive use of electronic products. Medical institutions abroad have discovered a phenomenon of "smartphone presbyopia": patients in their 20s have excessive eye fatigue due to long-term use of smartphones, and have developed early symptoms of presbyopia such as reduced zoom ability.

"Nowadays, people love to hold their mobile phones, tablets and laptops, and their eyes cannot get enough rest. In the long run, presbyopia occurs early in the eyes." Professor Lian said that most of these young presbyopia patients are white-collar workers, programmers, etc. who rely on computers to work.

Will myopia and presbyopia cancel each other out?

I often hear some young people say that it doesn’t matter if they are a little nearsighted now, because they won’t have presbyopia when they get older. From this, we can subjectively infer that: if you have mild myopia when you are young, your refractive power will be normal when you are old; if you have severe myopia when you are young, you will not only not need to wear reading glasses when you are old, but your myopia will also be reduced. In fact, "myopia and presbyopia will cancel each other out", "magnifying glasses can replace reading glasses", "reading glasses have no degree", etc. are all common misconceptions about presbyopia.

"Myopia and presbyopia cannot be offset because they are fundamentally different pathologically." Professor Lian pointed out that myopia is caused by refractive errors, while presbyopia is caused by lens degeneration and loss of elasticity. In clinical manifestations, the presbyopia of myopic patients will be slightly lighter than that of ordinary patients, but the degree of "alleviation" is quite limited. He said that patients with severe myopia and presbyopia have to use reading glasses when reading and myopia glasses when looking at distant objects, which is more inconvenient than ordinary presbyopia patients.

Another major misunderstanding is not paying enough attention to reading glasses, and even using magnifying glasses instead of reading glasses to read books and newspapers. Professor Lian said that this behavior is very harmful to the eyes. Reading glasses, like myopia, have different degrees. The degree of early presbyopia patients is about 100 to 150 degrees, while magnifying glasses are equivalent to 1000 or even 2000 degrees of reading glasses.

"It's like wearing inappropriate glasses and reading with a magnifying glass. It will make your eyes very tired and even aggravate the degree of presbyopia." Professor Lian said that presbyopia patients should still choose reading glasses, which can ensure clear vision while delaying the progression of presbyopia.