At Eyes on Weston, Dr. Melynda Gagliardi uses advances in myopia control to give young patients the chance to protect their vision before it changes.
Dr. Melynda Gagliardi knows exactly what it is like to wake up and not be able to see.
“I’m an eight-dioptre myope,” she says. “I wake up in the morning and everything’s blurry. I have to find my glasses in order to function.”
It is a surprising and personal admission from an optometrist, but it explains much about the work Dr. Gagliardi is doing today at Eyes on Weston by Gagliardi Optometric Clinic, the Vaughan practice her family has operated for 42 years.
Dr. Gagliardi grew up around optometry, working in her father’s clinic from the age of 16 before eventually pursuing the profession herself. During optometry school, a rotation in specialty contact lenses showed her how so much more could be done other than just correcting vision. She could help change someone’s experience with it.
Today, her practice focuses on corneal disease, dry eye, specialty contact lenses and, importantly, myopia control.
For generations, becoming increasingly nearsighted often meant watching a child’s prescription climb and replacing their glasses accordingly. Dr. Gagliardi says eye care now has the tools to intervene much earlier.
“The earlier we identify and address progressive myopia, the more opportunity we have to change its trajectory,” she says.
At Eyes on Weston, that means looking beyond the letters on an eye chart. Technology can measure the physical length of the eye and track its growth, sometimes detecting progression before a significant prescription change appears. Corneal mapping assists with specialty lenses and myopia control, while imaging of the eye’s oil glands helps monitor patients experiencing dry eye.
Treatment is equally individualized. The clinic offers myopia control through specialized eyeglasses, eye drops, orthokeratology, and soft contact lenses, with recommendations tailored to the patient.
It is part of a broader philosophy Dr. Gagliardi has brought to the long-standing family practice: seeing clearly does not always mean the eyes are healthy.
“You can have 20/20 vision and still have an eye-health issue,” she says.
That is particularly important for children, who may not even know or understand, in the first place, that what they are seeing is blurry. Routine examinations give practitioners the chance to find what a child cannot necessarily describe.
Dr. Gagliardi cannot go back and give her younger self access to the treatments available today. She can, however, offer them to the generation currently sitting in her exam chair.
And for a child whose vision is beginning to deteriorate, that may make all the difference.
8633 Weston Rd., Unit 10,
Vaughan, ON
905-264-6454
drgagliardi.com
@drmgagliardi
