Myopia, High Myopia Defined 

Myopia is a condition where the eye does not focus unless items are very close to the eye. People refer to this condition as being nearsighted. Humans by nature are generally nearsighted with the greater population between -1.00 and -4.00 diopters. Diopter is the strength of prescription eyewear required.

High Myopia is associated with prescriptions greater than -8.00 diopter and can go as high as -35.00 diopter. The higher prescriptions types of myopia are many times associated with axial length myopia, a condition whereby the back of the eye is much further from the cornea than normal making the eye very nearsighted.

Correction of High Myopia with Eyeglasses

Eyeglasses for High Myopia are still very important. Even though many high myopes wear contact lenses, eyeglasses are required before going to bed and upon waking. 

Making eyeglasses for High Myopia requires special skills and materials. Frames must fit exactly to eye size measurements. The frames must also have small lens sizes to accommodate the high prescriptions. Use of high index lens materials help reduce the thickness of the lenses. High Index lenses now come with a refractive index as high as 1.9 on glass special orders and as high as 1.74 on plastic lenses. Refractive index is the ability of an optical lens to bend light. The higher the index, the thinner the lens. Antireflective coating on the lenses increases light transmission through these high index materials making resolution much higher.

Correction of High Myopia with Contact Lenses

The preferred method of correction of High Myopia is contact lenses. Many different contact lenses are available including disposable contact lenses which are now available as high as -16.00 diopter. Contact lenses can restore vision with complete peripheral vision and little minification error. Minification error is when looking through a high minus prescription all images are smaller. Contact lenses of the same correction will allow images to be much larger than a high prescription eyeglass would be, reducing minification error.

Frames and Lenses available at Lens Design Ltd.

We stock a complete set of frames in many styles specifically designed for High Myopic corrections. We routinely build glasses between -10.00 and -20.00 diopter. Many of our patients are happy seeing how thin even a -20.00 diopter lens is with our special technology. Our lenses have special aspheric curves blended into the prescription to reduce room warp.

Frames For High Prescriptions - These frames come in different sizes to accommodate the various distances between the pupils on the face.  The lens then can be perfectly centered with maximum ease of wearing and thinness of lens edge.

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Frame Specifications Lens w x h - 40 x 35 to 44 x 36, overall width 127 to 142, nose bridge 20, temple 135 in mm, frame color - brown or gun metal.

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