Hi,
I can not express how I was happy finding all this information! My son, who is 12 has got glasses few day ago without any advice how to prevent myopia going worse. (L-0.25 R-0.50) Thanks a lot ... and we hope your advice will help

My I translate your web to Croatian?? It will be useful for children and their parents..

Sincerely
Ivan Grbin
Korcula - Croatia

Dear Mr. Grbin,
I think your son will be fine. L-0.25 R-0.50 is very weak, and he is young -- his eyes can recover. A friend of mine who was worse (-0.75, -1.00) and >older (27 years old) was able to recover to 0.0 with excellent vision. It took him about a year and a half using plus lenses.
The best advice I can offer your son is:
1) do not use the glasses at all, except perhaps for short periods while looking at something far away. (Like for bird watching, for example). He does not need them. I am much worse, (L-2.40, R-3.90), and I am fine >without glasses for everything except driving.
2) Read, use computers, and do other close work from a larger distance. 50cm is a minimum; 70cm is better.
3) Wear "plus" lenses for close work. I suggest +1.50 diopters for your son. He should be able to see perfectly with these at 50cm even with the myopia he has right now, and farther if his myopia lessens.
> One thing that really helped me was wearing +1.00 lenses around the house. This is optional. They make things blurry, but you adapt after a week or two. The advantage is that inside the house *everything* is close, which forces your eyes' focusing muscles to stay tight *all* the time. If you think about it, this is a mild form of "near work." The weak +1.00 "plus" lens allows the ciliary muscles to relax. When you take the glasses off, your distance vision is better.
My eyes were much worse than your son's are now. I was able to improve 1.2 diopters, but I'm still nearsighted. It was much too late to fix my myopia completely -- about 25 years too late!! -- but I think there's plenty of hope for your son to have perfect vision, and plenty of reason to experiment. On the other hand, if you do nothing and he follows the usual program of wearing stronger and stronger glasses, then he's guaranteed to get worse.
If I knew about these things when I was young, I would not be nearsighted today. That's why I made this web site -- so that other people could learn about and avoid this unnecessary problem.

I am happy to reach as many people as possible. You have my permission to translate my site to Croatian, and further, I will provide a link to your translation on the Myopia Prevention Home Page.
I cannot give you permission to translate the brochure from the International Myopia Prevention Association (IMPA) -- I must ask them first -- but I think they will agree. I will ask them and e-mail you with their answer.

Sincerely,
James Arthur
California, USA