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Medical Forum / General / Vision / January 2005

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Atropine and Myopia

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Andrew Chew - 15 Jan 2005 14:13 GMT
It seems from a preliminary study done in Singapore on young children that
Atropine is able to slow Myopia progression significantly, and in some cases
even reverse Myopia.

Do you think it can be used on adults to reverse existing Myopia?

Could Myopia be caused by ciliary muscles which refuse to relax completely?

TIA
Andrew Chew - 15 Jan 2005 14:26 GMT
Here is the URL:

http://www.snec.com.sg/news/press_archive_07022003.asp
Neil Brooks - 15 Jan 2005 16:08 GMT
> It seems from a preliminary study done in Singapore on young children
> that Atropine is able to slow Myopia progression significantly, and
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
> Could Myopia be caused by ciliary muscles which refuse to relax
> completely?

I'm not a doctor, but a patient who suffers from tenacious ciliary spasm.

From my understanding, Atropine will relieve the /symptoms/ of
/pseudomyopia/, which is really what you're describing: a failure of the
accommodative system (ciliaries) to completely relax.  You may want to do
some Googling with the keywords

   ciliary spasm
   accommodative excess
   accommodative spasm
   pseudomyopia

Be very careful with Atropine.  Make no mistake: it's a drug . . . and the
preservative in it (benzalkonium chloride) can eat away at your cornea over
time (http://snipurl.com/c1cn).  Also, I was on round-the-clock Atropine
(twice/day) for several months.  It is a major problem to deal with the
paralysis of your accommodative mechanism, the glare, and the chromatic
aberrations induced by the effects of the drug.  No fun at all.

You should consult a qualified optometrist.  I would think that a comparison
between your "dry" refraction and a refraction under cycloplegia (perhaps
HOMatropine) would give a pretty quick answer to whether you are dealing
with pseudomyopia or not.  If not, then the usual recommendations for myopia
would likely apply....

Best of luck!

Neil
Dr. Leukoma - 15 Jan 2005 16:42 GMT
Actually, atropine has been shown to prevent axial myopic progression
through its role as a strong muscarinic receptor antagonist.  It's
strong cycloplegic action will also reverse ciliary spasm and
accommodative myopia.  Pirenzepine, a more selective muscarinic
antagonist, will slow axial myopic progression by about 50%, but has no
effect on accommodative myopia because it does not cause cycloplegia.

DrG

> > It seems from a preliminary study done in Singapore on young children
> > that Atropine is able to slow Myopia progression significantly, and
[quoted text clipped - 33 lines]
>
> Neil
 
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