Atropine for myopia

amother

Tue, Feb 04 2020, 5:57 pm

Has anyone used low dose atropine eye drops to prevent the rapid progression of myopia? If you have, has there been good results with the eye drops? My dds ophthalmologist is recommending either this or a specific kind of contact lens. My dd refuses to consider contacts and I'm worried because her prescription is increasing very quickly.

amother

Denim

Wed, Feb 05 2020, 2:56 pm

I was told this by a optometrist in regard to my son whose prescription was getting higher rapidly. His pediatric ophthalmologist was very anti, so ultimately we did not do the contacts or eye drops.

amother

Wed, Feb 05 2020, 5:38 pm

amother [ Denim ] wrote:

I was told this by a optometrist in regard to my son whose prescription was getting higher rapidly. His pediatric ophthalmologist was very anti, so ultimately we did not do the contacts or eye drops.

Thanks for replying. Why was the pediatric optho against doing the drops? Was there a rationale? Did your son's prescription continue to increase rapidly?

rowo

Wed, Feb 05 2020, 5:58 pm

We started the drops few months ago for my DD.
She hasn’t had a checkup since then, so I don’t know if it’s effective yet. But anyway, the recommendation is to use it for a few years, so a few months wouldn’t say much.
It’s such a low dose, and it’s easy enough for her to do the drops before bed, so after a bit of research we decided to try it.

amother

Taupe

Wed, Feb 05 2020, 7:23 pm

I've been doing the drops for a number of years for dd. It's basically impossible to prove of they work or not for a specific patient, since no one knows how the myopia would have progressed without the drops. Anecdotally, it seems to have slowed down progression for dd. Before the drops, she got her first prescription at -500 and 6 months later it was -750/800! We started the drops and 3.5 years later, her prescription is -1000.

amother

Taupe

Wed, Feb 05 2020, 7:48 pm

amother [ Royalblue ] wrote:

The drops didnt work for my eyes. I needed surgery.

Are you sure you were using it for myopia? The more common use for atropine (although at a more concentrated dose) is to treat strabismus caused by amblyopia/lazy eye instead of eye patching. If that doesn't work, surgery is the next step. Surgery is usually not prescribed for myopia in childhood.

amother

Denim

Wed, Feb 05 2020, 8:32 pm

amother [ OP ] wrote:

Thanks for replying. Why was the pediatric optho against doing the drops? Was there a rationale? Did your son's prescription continue to increase rapidly?

She did not feel like there was enough evidence to support that it works, and she doesn't believe in messing around with eyes. Additionally she said that while his prescription is rising quickly, she felt pretty confident that it would stop at -10.00 based on looking at his eyes. So even though it seemed scary now, ultimately it won't be terrible. I don't know. It is very hard to make these choices when we have no idea what is actually going on. But she is a pediatric ophthalmologist and I figure she knows a lot more than I do. Good luck!

amother

Royalblue

Wed, Feb 05 2020, 9:28 pm

amother [ Taupe ] wrote:

Yea it was for lazy eye.

amother

Thu, Feb 06 2020, 12:46 am

Thanks to all who replied. We saw a pediatric optometrist who recommended the drops. I have to make an appt with a peds ophthalmologist because I'm not sure if I should trust the optometrist who has a lot less experience. I'm just afraid that waiting another 6 months for this appointment is irresponsible.