Does dilating mydriasis hurt the eyes?

Mydriasis is a medication-based treatment for children's eye diseases, which can effectively relieve myopia or pseudomyopia in children. Generally, mydriasis will not cause harm to the eyes. Some detailed examinations will be done before mydriasis is performed. Mydriasis can be performed if the eyes are normal. After mydriasis, more attention should be paid to the care of the eye area.

Is mydriasis harmful to the eyes?

We will measure intraocular pressure before dilation to rule out glaucoma.

When the intraocular pressure is normal, the patient will be afraid of light outdoors and have blurred vision at close range for a certain period of time after mydriasis (4-6 hours for rapid mydriasis, 1-3 days for mydriasis with cyclopentolone, and about 2 weeks for mydriasis with atropine).

The pupil is dilated but it is harmless to the child's eyes, and everything will be normal after the pupil returns.

Application

(1) Children under 12 years of age. Because its regulatory effect is very strong, if the pupil is not dilated during eye examination, the error will be very large.

(2) For patients aged 12 to 40 with myopia, hyperopia or astigmatism, in principle, the pupil should be dilated during the first eye examination. During the second eye examination, if the degree does not change much, a small pupil eye examination can be performed based on the original degree and then the degree can be increased or decreased.

(3) If fundus and refractive media examinations are normal but visual acuity is poor, mydriasis refraction is needed to rule out refractive error.

(4) More complex refractive errors, such as high myopia, high hyperopia or high astigmatism, or myopia or hyperopia combined with astigmatism.

(5) Teenagers have unstable vision, which may be good at one moment and bad at another. They are suspected of having pseudomyopia. Once the pupil of such patients is dilated, the accommodation effect disappears and the pseudomyopia is eliminated.

condition

first

Children under the age of 16 who are getting glasses for the first time must have their pupils dilated before getting an eye test. Because they are likely to have pseudomyopia (i.e. eye muscle tension caused by long-term close-up learning, which can return to normal after a period of rest). If the eye test is done after dilation of the pupil, the degree will be more accurate.

Secondly

Children with hyperopia also need to have their pupils dilated and have their eyes tested before getting glasses. Because children with hyperopia have latent hyperopia, and a considerable number of them also have problems with amblyopia and strabismus. It is difficult to understand the true degree of hyperopia if you directly test the eyes without dilation examination and prescribe glasses, and you may get too little degree, which will not be enough to correct amblyopia and strabismus.

Pros and Cons

First of all, it eliminates the over-accommodation and spasm of the ciliary muscles of adolescents, which is more accurate than subjective optometry. At the same time, it avoids the pseudomyopia or astigmatism caused by accommodation spasm, and also has a therapeutic effect on pseudomyopia. In addition, for young children or primary school students who cannot cooperate well, dilating the pupils will allow the light to be reflected clearly, making it easier to perform retinal retinoscopy and obtain reliable objective indicators. It is more accurate and reliable than subjective optometry; it is faster and saves time than mydriasis optometry; for the examiner, there is no inconvenience such as photophobia and poor vision after mydriasis. Especially for the elderly and people with glaucoma, it can avoid complications caused by mydriasis.

Mydriasis may cause temporary inconvenience to the person being examined, such as the eyes being afraid of strong light stimulation for a few days, and having trouble seeing close objects clearly, which affects study and work. So some people are unwilling to accept this approach. In addition, this method cannot be used for eyesight testing for people with glaucoma. Performing eye examination under the condition of auto-adjustment is prone to errors and cannot detect pseudomyopia.