Letting your child to wear over night contact lense

[Greenleave]

My 9 yrs old needs glasses, she is near sighted(last time checked was -0.5). I am thinking of using Ortho-K. Do you use it? Know anyone who uses it? Especially young age children. My husband thinks we should stick with usual glasses.

Bit puzzled, OP, as to why you're asking a bunch of unqualified people on an internet forum, some of whom clearly have no idea what these lenses are and how they work, instead of discussing it with your DD's, no doubt qualified, optician.

I'm a long term (20 year plus) contact lens wearer and hadn't heard of ortho k until your post. I've read up and Will and go and talk to an optician about it - sounds interesting. However the lenses are gas permeable Ines (not soft like you said OP) and I know from experience that has permeable lenses are not comfortable.

Would I consider it for a child? Yes, if the evidence, which I haven't seen btw, showed a likelihood of reversing or slowing down the sight deterioration

I've no experience of ortho-k lenses but have been wearing glasses since age 4/5 and lenses since about 10 or 11. If the ortho-k ones don't suit why not get glasses as well as some soft daily disposable. The dailies are comfortable, no issues about losing one and most importantly no cleaning required so less risk of infection etc. I used to wear the monthly sleep in lenses and ended up with a corneal ulcer and was told in no uncertain terms never to use them again and to go back to dailies.

Jenny: How does he do it daily? Does he put them in himself and remove them in the morning? Does he have regular check up?(thinking of hygene and other eye care where there could be risk).

To other poster asking why I am asking you all here rather than asking my 9 years old who has never worn glasses, I think the answer is rather obvious.

If that reply is to me OP, I was asking why you aren't discussing it with the optician, not why you aren't discussing it with your DC.

The reason she doesnt wear them as she said she doesnt think she needs them because she can still see things at schools, read however we know her eyesight isnt 20/20 and it was confirmed last time we checked that she is -0.5 in one eye and -0.25 on the other. I think they are worse now as yesterday I asked her to read a board from a train station and she couldn’t read them ( I am -2.00 and needed her to read them for me as I wasn’t wearing glasses at the time). I have been doing various things in hope for her myopia to slow down including restricting reading time, increase outdoor time, no screen except very irregular “In the night garden” section which she still loves watching it with her toddler sister, making sure we have loads of light anytime we read and remind her of her reading position( and here is a book worm, she reads every time she has “free time”, it doesn’t need to be a book).

OP, otho-k are gas permeable lenses not soft

You clearly want to be told it's going to be fine. It is your child's vision, your money. A lot of opticians won't touch them is all I'm saying, those who promote them are in the minority. As someone with a serious eye condition brought on by lenses when younger, which may eventually lead to blindness, I'd say you can't be too careful with eyes

My optician recommended these for dd1 10 years ago, we didn't get them for her, instead she has worn soft lenses for about 5 days a week. Modern soft lenses are very easy to wear, to begin she had daily disposables & then as she grew older we switched to lenses which last about 2 weeks. She only wore them for sport & ballet to begin, her eyesight was around -1.5 and has deteriorated (she is now a young adult).

I don't get this - her eyes are fine. She doesn't need glasses because the prescription is so slight.

Why are you so keen on this? There is no problem to be solved here.

I actually enquired about a research trial using these to reduce progression of myopia in DC.

two things put me off the trial. firstly they were supposed to be worn every night, and my child was really young at the time - young enough for the idea of getting them in and out on a daily basis to be off-putting.

and secondly, as others have mentioned, gas permeable lenses are far less comfy than soft disposables.

My son's friend has worn them for a number of years, I don't know when he started because he was 14 when we met them. They appear to work well for him.

I am shocked at how many posters are commenting when they clearly know nothing about it.
Especially the nasty ones at the beginning about how the dd should be encouraged to wear glasses.

Not everyone likes wearing glasses you know!! Some do, I actually don't.
With both ds's needing glasses, very young, I've always put a positive spin on it, but actually, unbeknown to my ds's I hate wearing glasses!!

Ds1 asked our optician, many years ago about contacts and was told he could, later, approx 11. As it is, he hasn't asked recently, but children CAN wear them if they want to.

So, OP is actually 'allowed' to ask, if any parent has bought said contacts for their child.

Or is asking a crime in itself?

It will get worse, I am just hoping to slow it down and I am trying to look for all options. Ortho-K came up as a potential solution: she doesnt have to wear glasses during day light and could slow the myopia. I wear glasses for years and the same is my husband and we have never heard about it before not mentioning knowing someone with experience using it. We could help her to put them in and take them out until she could do it herself. It not the normal contact lenses to stress it further. When I booked an appointment we were told that we are suitable( no other eye issues and less than -5.00). Google did bring up some results however not much.

Hi OP, I have worn ortho k overnight lenses for 8 years aged 17-25 ish. I had to stop in the end as they stopped working for me. They are hard lenses and can be uncomfortable to begin with but after a couple of nights you don't even notice them. I guess the concern with a 9 year old would be hygiene but if you supervise then it could be OK. My optician thinks they stopped my prescription from deteriorating but I've never researched so that could be nonsense. Best bet is talk to the optician and take it from there.

Green - my optician said exactly the same at my son's last appointment. He's only very marginally short-sighted at the moment, so we're on watch-and-wait, but if he does need glasses, and these over-night contacts could make the difference between, say, a -1 prescription as an adult and a -3, it would be worth doing.

For those on this thread who haven't heard of them, the idea is to correct the shape of your corneas overnight to slow the progression of short-sightedness. They're not the same as the contact lenses you wear during the day to actually focus light.

I wear glasses (about -5 in both eyes) and although they don't bother me most of the time, there are situations (sport mainly) where I'd love to have had perfect sight. (Yes contact lenses are an option, but they're a pain in the bum at the best of times, and a nightmare in places where you can't get access to clean water and a basin - e.g. a bivouac site half way up a mountain!) There are also some jobs (not many) where you need to have good vision (e.g. pilot - you don't have to be 20-20 but you do have to be able to see the cockpit instruments without your glasses on).

I guess some people go for laser correction, but I've heard some bad things about that (e.g. flare round street lights when driving at night) and the risk of complications - about 1 in 200 - is just higher than I'm happy to take for something as critical as my sight.

Thanks M0,

Allshades: do you mind if I asked what was your prescription when you started and what is it now?

Sounds like snake oil to me. How much worse is it going to get - you are about 5, you say? I'm over twice that. Got lenses when I was 18 and never looked back.

Both my children wear night time lenses which correct their vision and have done since they were 8 and 7 years old respectively. They have had them for about 3-4 years now. They wear i-go lenses which I assume are similar but a different brand.

We went for them over glasses as my daughters vision has deteriorated by -2.0 in one year and would likely continue to do so. The i-go lenses have halted this deterioration. Her father has a prescription of -7.0 and he wishes the lenses had been available to him as a child.

As to how they got on. Child 2 took to them like a duck to water. Has no trouble putting them in, and as he is very sporty, it has been great that he does not have to wear glasses during the day for sport. He is quite scatty and I imagine he would always lose or break his glasses.

Child 1 did struggle in the early stages as she was so young. She really did find putting lenses in and taking them out very hard. Initially it took three separate visits to the opticians for her to learn how to put them in and out, and once home, often took her 20 mins in the evening to do so herself for the first 2 weeks. It was a hard few weeks. However, she persevered and now is fine and very adept at it. In all honesty she doesn't particularly like them but then glasses can be a pain too for a teenage girl. I do wonder how much her eyesight would have deteriorated if she didn't have them.

We have found the correction effects actually last about 3 days. When my son lost one (and whilst waiting for a replacement) he noticed the difference after about this timeframe. In fact now, even if he is tired, he is keen to never miss putting his lenses in as he doesn't like not having perfect vision.

Also we have had no problem with eye infections at all - although our optician was very good at teaching the kids good hygiene.

I hope this helps.

Wow Jalfrezi, thank you for sharing, we are having an appointment with iGO too

My friend wore these, had an ulcer six years gave up wearing contacts altogether. Has had three ulcers in the last month the sight in one eye has been permanently damaged she is now only just legal to drive. So no I would not recommend them for a child or an adult for that matter after seeing what she went through. I have worn glasses since I was a child they are a fashion accessory for me I decided so I have made the most of it.

All the posters saying she doesn't even need glasses anyway at -0.5 are talking rubbish. It's a slight prescription but I started off with contacts at -0.25, then over the years it has gradually worsened and I'm now -1.0 in both eyes. Even at 0.25 the difference in my vision wearing them and not was incredible. I can get by without them, sure, but everything in the distance is fuzzy and I have no hope of reading a sign or the channel guide on the TV.

I'd not heard of ortho-k either, I have a contact lens check this week and am going to ask about it!

I've been wearing lenses for 24 years and have never heard of them.

Seriously, what are you afraid will happen if you don't spend this money and make your child do this every night?

Anecdata coming up.

Wore g p lenses waking to sleeping from 20s until my early 40s, then tolerance crashed. Optician said 'sorry, your two decades of tolerance are up, soft lens time' . stopped g p lenses and as warned, 3 dioptres more short sighted in a week as the 'bandage' effect wore off. Bugger.

Now soft lenses in day and specs in evening. And as another optician said, no one ever hurt their eyes with specs. Risk of lasering was always too high for me - space shuttle was statistically safer.

Ive never had an eye infection in 35 years of lens wearing but I have never worn them overnight.

What am I saying? I am wondering if it is worth it for the kid.

I was googling what to do to help to slow it down and I read people have been using it for the last 10 years and it could help. Most of my friends children wearing glasses and none of them has tried it(couple said they heard of it however I think they might have thought of usual contact lenses). Now, there must be a reason why its not very popular yet(along with cost). Last time after the check up we already tried couple of glasses and she begged not to wear them with so much tears that the shop assistants said we dont have to when we are -0.5 L and -0.25 R. She has then listened to everything I said in hope for her eye sight to get better( Spend less time reading, being outdoor more, no screen etc )however it still is getting worse. We went to a concert last night and she couldnt read letters on boards, my husband could read them clearly(with his glasses on). We will know whats her prescription in our appointment this week and understand if we could try it.