Not long ago, a high school classmate came to me worriedly and asked me if her 5-year-old son was found to have more than 100 degrees of farsightedness, but isn’t farsightedness presbyopia, and how can my child be presbyopic at such a young age? I believe that there are many people who are confused and worried about this. So what exactly is farsightedness, how does farsightedness form, what are the symptoms of farsightedness, is farsightedness presbyopia, what to do if you find farsightedness, and how to prevent farsightedness? Let’s talk about farsightedness today. Medically speaking, hyperopia refers to a refractive state in which parallel light rays from the outside world enter the eye and focus on the retinal photoreceptor cell layer. That is, in layman’s terms, for a normal eye, 5 meters away from the object’s reflection into the eye, the focus of these rays can fall accurately on the retina, so we can clearly see the object’s appearance; while people with hyperopia, their focus falls behind the retina, so can not be clearly imaged on the retina, resulting in if their eyes do not undergo a certain amount of effort to see the distance is unclear, the near is even less clear. Even less so when looking close. In order to correct farsightedness, we often need to wear eyeglasses with appropriate converging lenses (convex lenses) to make the light rays converge and end up on the retina. My child keeps saying he is tired of reading, is he lying to me because he doesn’t like to read? WARNING: Vision fatigue may be farsightedness! When the following symptoms occur, we should be alert to farsightedness. First, vision loss, near vision is worse than far vision. The human eye has a certain adjusting ability, so the eyes of mild hyperopia patients can make the image that originally fell behind the retina move forward and fall on the retina after certain efforts, and their distance and near vision are often normal at this time. However, there is a limit to this ability to adjust, and it decreases with age. When the eye is unable to move the image behind the retina to the retina even with its best efforts, you will notice that what you see becomes blurry. It takes more effort for your eyes to see closer than farther, so people with symptomatic farsightedness tend to see more blurry up close. Second, easy visual fatigue. Normal eyes can easily see objects more than 5 meters away, and only need to use the eye’s adjusting power when looking closer. However, people with hyperopia are different, they need to adjust their eyes both far and near, and they need to make more efforts than normal people, so they will be more prone to visual fatigue than normal people when using their eyes for a long period of time, and they will suffer from visual fatigue symptoms such as blurring of vision, eyebrow arch distension, headache, sleep abnormality, etc. So when you find that your child is more blurred than normal people, you will see that he or she is more prone to visual fatigue than normal. So when you find your child for a longer period of time complaining of their eyes, eye swelling, eye soreness, tearing, headache, inattention, easy to fatigue, especially can not use the eyes for a long time to learn, do not simply mistakenly believe that he is not love reading, but should be considered to have a farsightedness, may wish to take him to the regular hospital ophthalmology department to do an optometry examination. Third, squint. When farsightedness causes eye strabismus, the degree of farsightedness is often larger, preschool children are common, which is over-adjustment and too much collection, resulting in the visual near reflex disorders and induced strabismus caused by the farsightedness degree of deeper eyes, there may be extraocular strabismus, should be treated in a timely manner. How can my child be presbyopic at such a young age? Remember: Farsightedness is not presbyopia! Presbyopia is medically known as “presbyopia”, which is a natural physiological process in which the human eye gradually loses its ability to regulate as it ages. We have said that the normal human eye can easily see objects 5 meters away, while looking close to the need to use the eye’s adjusting power, the eye’s adjusting ability with age and gradually reduced. This is where the problem of presbyopia comes in. It is the lack of accommodation that causes the image of a near object to appear behind the retina. So what is the difference between presbyopia and hyperopia? Presbyopes have defective accommodation, but they don’t need accommodation to see far, so presbyopes can see far clearly, and only when they see near do they have blurred vision due to inadequate accommodation. On the other hand, patients with hyperopia have normal adjustment ability, but they not only need adjustment to see near, but also need adjustment to see far, so as long as their adjustment ability is exceeded, they have difficulty in seeing near and far. But the interesting thing is that the image they get when they see objects falls behind the retina, so their treatment is to wear glasses with converging lenses (convex lenses). This is why people mistake farsightedness for presbyopia. In fact, the age of presbyopia is usually greater than 40 years old, while farsightedness has no age limit, which is a completely different thing. My child is farsighted at such a young age, does it have to be treated immediately? Note: Sometimes farsightedness doesn’t have to be treated! There are two causes of hyperopia: one is caused by a small eye with a short axial length, called “axial hyperopia”; and the other is called “refractive hyperopia” because the axial length of the eye is relatively normal but there is a problem with the refractive medium of the eye. We should know that people are not born so tall and big, so the eyes are the same, it also has the process of growth and development. People are often born with a high degree of hyperopia because of their small eyes. With age, the eyeballs continue to get bigger and the eye axes continue to grow, so people will gradually change from hyperopia to orthopia. Hyperopia that exists in infancy and early childhood is called physiologic hyperopia and is a normal process of eye development. Its physiological normal value is: 3 to 4 years old within 200 degrees of hyperopia, 4 to 5 years old within 150 degrees of hyperopia, 6 to 8 years old within 100 degrees of hyperopia, more than the normal range of hyperopia we have to consider the possibility of pathologic hyperopia. So when you find that your child has hyperopia, don’t panic, you may want to compare first. But this is not a sure thing, not all farsightedness, you can let your guard down! Some children have eyeballs that do not develop with age into a normal eye, will remain even great degrees of hyperopia, if not found in time with prescription correction, will seriously affect the child’s learning and development. The child’s farsightedness as a child do not have to worry about, older will not myopia? Reminder: Hyperopia is more troublesome than myopia! Many ophthalmologists believe that farsightedness is much more troublesome than nearsightedness, which is not unreasonable. First of all, sometimes farsightedness can be very deep latent, not easy to detect. Especially in preschool children, most of them do not need to focus on learning to use their eyes for a long time, and usually do not have clinical symptoms caused by hyperopia. When they enter the school age, they will have symptoms of eye distension, eye soreness, tearing, pain in the brow and posterior occipital region, which will be alleviated or disappeared after they stop using their eyes or sleeping. Some parents do not understand that this is a symptom of hyperopia, but think that it is an excuse for children to be playful and unwilling to learn, and as a result, in the process of forced learning, it will aggravate their symptoms of hyperopia. Secondly, moderate to high hyperopia is not only associated with low visual acuity, but also with strabismus and amblyopia. Studies have shown that severe hyperopia is also more likely to suffer from glaucoma, which is extremely harmful. Therefore, timely correction of hyperopia is crucial. Nowadays, hyperopia can be treated with frames, corneal contact lenses or refractive surgery. Mild hyperopia does not require correction if there are no symptoms. If there is visual fatigue and internal strabismus, lenses should be worn even if the degree of hyperopia is low. Those with moderate hyperopia or those who are over middle-aged should wear lenses to correct their vision, eliminate visual fatigue and prevent the occurrence of internal and external strabismus. The only reasonable and effective treatment for hyperopia in children is to wear convex lenses. Children with hyperopia must wear lenses to reduce the number of glasses year by year, before the age of 6, children with hyperopia should be examined every six months, and after the age of 6, they can be examined once a year, and a pair of glasses should never be worn for a long time, resulting in irreversible damage to the eyes. Hyperopia is not a small problem, prevention is very important: focus on early detection, diligently check vision, timely correction.