What changes occur in the eyeball after severe myopia?

In life, many people around us, even ourselves, wear glasses. Maybe you think that the impact of myopia on our lives is nothing more than wearing a pair of glasses, which is a little troublesome. Even if the degree increases, it is just a change of glasses. But is this really the only impact of myopia on us? What does high myopia mean? Today, Professor Li Yujun, the dean of the Aier Eye Hospital affiliated to Henan University, the deputy leader of the fundus disease group of the Henan Medical Association, and the chief physician, will explain to you what changes will happen to our eyeballs after high myopia occurs.

Eyeball deformation and eye axis elongation

High myopia usually refers to a refractive error state with a myopia degree of more than 600 degrees. Dean Li Yujun introduced that if children under 6 years old have myopia of more than 400 degrees and children under 8 years old have myopia of more than 500 degrees, they are also called high myopia.

The axial length of a normal person's eye is about 23mm-24mm long. For every 1mm increase in the axial length, the degree of myopia increases by about 300 degrees . In other words, the longer the axial length, the higher the degree of myopia.

If the eyeball is likened to a balloon, then the eyeball of a person with severe myopia is like a balloon that is constantly being blown up and becoming thinner, gradually approaching the danger of "bursting".

Fundus changes

Since the eyeballs of people with high myopia are longer than those of normal people, the morphology of the retinal blood vessels in the fundus changes. As the degree of myopia increases, the morphology of the retinal blood vessels in the fundus becomes tortuous, dilated, disordered, and the degree of leopard-like fundus will gradually increase.

Generally speaking, simple leopard-shaped fundus does not require special treatment , but if leopard-shaped fundus develops into serious fundus lesions, such as retinal detachment, retinal holes, macular lesions, etc., it may cause a significant decrease in vision, and severe cases may lead to blindness.

Retinal thinning occurs because the axial length of patients with high myopia becomes longer and the eyeball grows beyond the normal size. In this case, other structures of the eyeball cannot grow at the same time, or after growing to a certain extent, they cannot match the excessively long axial length, resulting in lesions.

Since the volume of the retina is fixed, when the retina is over-stretched, it may develop holes or degenerate during the stretching process. If the degeneration lasts for a long time, holes will also appear. At this time, the fluid in the vitreous cavity will enter the retina through the holes in the retina, causing the separation of the neuroepithelium and the pigment epithelium, that is, retinal detachment. When retinal detachment occurs, the patient will experience symptoms such as dark shadows in front of the eyes, loss of visual field, and decreased vision. In severe cases, it will cause blindness .

Notice

Axial growth is the basic pathological change of myopia, and controlling axial growth is the main method to control the progression of myopia. At present, there are many measures in ophthalmology clinic for the prevention and control of high myopia. Common methods include frame glasses, corneal contact lenses, corneal refractive surgery and intraocular refractive surgery. In addition, posterior scleral reinforcement can also be used clinically to control the growth of high myopia . Posterior scleral reinforcement is a surgery that uses allogeneic biological materials or artificial synthetic materials to reinforce the sclera of the posterior pole of the eyeball to prevent the progressive expansion of the posterior pole sclera and the progressive elongation of the axial length, in order to prevent or alleviate the development of myopia. A large number of studies have shown that posterior scleral reinforcement has a good effect in preventing and treating the progression of high myopia.

In summary, the occurrence of high myopia actually means that the shape of the eyeball and many parts and tissues have changed . Therefore, myopia prevention and control, especially in adolescents, must not be taken lightly. Dean Li Yujun reminds parents and friends that current studies have shown that children whose parents are myopic have a significantly increased risk of developing myopia, and it is positively correlated with the degree of myopia of their parents . For high myopia, especially early-onset high myopia and pathological myopia, the role of genetic factors is more obvious. If it is known that the parents are high myopic patients, then the prevention and control of myopia in children should also be put on the agenda as early as possible.