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.

MrsDoyles: I hope your hope is true to make you appear kind. For your pleasure, I was thinking it was me that allow her not to wear glasses then made it was progressing that fast and I thought I could have done better the last 8 months. I dont want to read what is in your head. I'd like to close this discussion.
For others, thanks so much for your sharing and kindness, I am glad there are choices for myopic patients. Dont know if it works yet however we will try.

OK - you need to get a bit of a grip. Great that you've decided to go for Ortho K and I truly wish you and your DD well - there are lots of us on here who love them and have a great experience with them.

But - like all lenses they are not for everyone, your DD might not get on with them, she may (if she doesn't keep to the cleaning regime) get an infection, if her myopia progresses it may be too much for the Ortho K to correct. What will you do then?

You have to model positivity about glasses on this, it's anecdata but includes a hell of a lot of primary kids via my parents: glasses are not the 'speccy twat' thing they were when we were kids. I know loads of kids with glasses (including DS) none of them have issues with them. Be positive about them, pick a great pair, compliment your DD on them, don't position them as a terrible thing to be endured until she can try OrthoK...and stop crying about her needing glasses/being short-sighted.

I asked the optician about Ortho-K for my 14 year old and he didn't recommend as he said results can be inconsistent and his own experience is that lenses can be uncomfortable.

My ds was wearing lenses at 11 and has got on just fine with them. He flatly refused to wear glasses after a child in his y5 class told him he looked funny .

Yes, the Right eye which was -0.5 now is -2.5 and the Left eye which was -0.25 is now -1.75. The check was 2 hours for everything as we didnt expect this, its only 7 months after last check.

Its not about wearing glasses as terrible thing, its about the rapid progression that was unexpected(and it was only me this time while I wasnt surprised last time as expected her wearing glasses last time). She is wearing glasses at first for her brain to get used to it then she can try Ortho-K. She doesnt say she doesnt want glasses this time, she knows she needs them and they help her. I thought all this "out door more, no screen, loads longer sleep and more rest, eat balance and heathily" could help, apparently they dont.

With a change like that in such a short time I'm surprised that she hadn't been referred to a specialist.

I completely understand that this isn't about the stigma of wearing glasses but slowing down the deterioration.
However from personal experience of having high myopia and professional experience of working in optics for many years I don't think anything will do that significantly.

Yes, Ivy, the Optician checked many times to make sure if he was right. He said the prescription last time must have been inaccurate.

So if the last prescription was inaccurate then there hasn't been such a huge jump.

I don't understand how the last one can be so out though. The difference between-0.50 and -2.50 is huge. Roughly the difference between not managing to read the bottom two lines and not mangaging to get to the middle.

I would change opticians. He/She gives you an inaccurate mild prescription and tells you about lenses that can halt deterioration. It's obviously a sensitive issue for your dd. They then give you a more accurate test which makes it even more likely you will opt for these lenses. Not very professional. Hope it gets sorted.

It can progress really quickly at first. Especially if they are rapidly growing or hitting puberty.

Sorry, not been back, but my DS has always put them in himself. First week I got up and helped watch him take them out - worried they would fling and he'd step on it or something!

He started on multi focals to slow his eyesight deterioration, but although first eye check looked promising, he then continued to deteriorate. That's when we were told about ortho-K.

As an aside, nothing in the way you use your eyes affects progression of short sight. Reading, screens, etc makes no difference.

Old wives tales.

Would it be possible for your dd to at least try conventional soft contact lenses for the moment before going down the ortho k route.

There is a fairly new contact lens which is designed for children to stop the progression of myopia. I believe it comes in a soft lens daily disposable.

I'm an optometrist who fits ortho-k lenses. There are now many studies that show that they can slow the progression of myopia significantly. I think it is part of my role to advise parents and patients on ways that they can slow down the rate.

One of the reasons for the concern with myopia, is that high myopia can be associated with early development of cataracts, retinal holes, tears and detachments and several other conditions.

I've never fitted anyone under -1.50DS. As all corneas are different you don't get a completely exact prescription, so a successful fit for me would be between +0.50 and -0.50, which is well within driving standard. Some people do get plano though.

There are long term results. I started fitting about 20 years ago and apart from some people losing tolerance, a small infection risk (but lower than soft lenses) and initial discomfort there doesn't seem to be any long term complications. For many people the effect does wear off at the end of a long day, so if your teen is out clubbing at 2am, they may notice a deterioration and several of my patients have a pair of late night driving glasses in the car.

I hope the eye exam went okay today, if she isn't at a level that is suitable for ortho-k yet, then please do encourage her to get and wear some glasses, but its a great possibility for later on.

I have used overnight contact lens and I don't recommend them.

I ended up with a corneal ulcer and could have lost my vision in one eye.

Definitely not for a 9 year old. If you want to ask anything else PM me.

Underneath: thanks so much for your post and info, yes, we are going with Ortho-K, she is wearing glasses for 3 weeks for her brain to get used to the idea of having 20/20 something vision then we will move into Ortho-K(we have made the measurement, pictures...paid for the big lump sum and filled for monthly directly debit). There will be glasses there incase she ever needs, we paid for spared pair of lenses incase the main one missing/damaged as I understand the order can take up to 3 weeks.

Jenny, all, thanks for sharing experience, we are now joining your gang.

Just to follow up on what sandy says. With any type of contact lens, so daily, silcon, month, two weekly gas permeable etc as you are putting something in your eye there is obviously a higher risk of g thing an eye inf cation that if you don't wear lenses.

The risk was much higher 15 years ago with the old style soft lenses and most optometrists would not fit them.

You can reduce your risk of having issues (which can be blinding) by -
Not over wearing your lenses - optometrists will advise on wearing schedule for a particular lens type
Having regular check ups
Cleaning lenses very evening and not using tap water to clean the lens or the case.
Changing your case regularly
Removing lenses immediately if you experience redness or discomfort and seeking optometric advise if this doesn't go within an hour or recurs.
Having up to date glasses so that you are happy reminding lenses if you have an issue.
Not sleeping in lenses unless they are designed for sleeping in.

I've been qualified for 21 years now and fitted hundreds of patients with lenses. I've seen a few infections, but they haven't been serious unless someone hasn't followed advice. You just need to be careful.

I wear ortho K. Not read the whole thread so don't know if other posters have been able to help. If I can be of help I will.

We are also considering these lenses, our optician recommended EyeDream which has soft lenses for daytime use for -3 dioptres or less or Ortho-k night time lenses for -3.5 or more. Do you use these underneath the ash and crucial question - do they stop progression with your patients? Thanks for info.

Hi marshmallow - eye dream lenses aren't soft lenses, they're rgps. I've done a link

www.no7contactlenses.com/ortho-k/patient-information.html

Soft bifocal lenses for daytime wear have shown to reduce myopic progression, but only in some studies and the effect is not as pronounced. I usually recommend ortho k first and then the soft bifocals as a second option.

Thanks for the info underneath, it is so useful having somebody who works in the area. DD is -1.75R and -1.25L so we are going to give them a go as well. We just need to work out why our optician recommended daytime EyeDream for my daughter's prescription and not night time Ortho-k. From what you say the night time ones have more reliable results.

I've re-read the leaflet and realised I got things confused, EyeDream is the Ortho-k night time lens (obvious from the name!) and soft daytime lenses are recommended for my daughter's prescription - still need to work out why our optician does this.

Ortho k is not used by all opticians, you need someone experienced in its use. In my home town when I had ortho k of the 6 independents only one was trained in its use.

That is right, not everyone can prescribe Ortho-K, we had it measured with someone we had never been to. I registered with iGO online then I had £50 off for eye check(still do expect a £410 bill at first then £59/monthly later--we went with anti-glared as well, I told myself that luckily I have only two children and she wont ever have a fancy phone later).

I only heard about Ortho-K recently. I fundamentally don't like the concept. With normal contacts, you put them and you can see until you take them out. From what I've researched, with Ortho-K, you put them in overnight (for a start, I don't get a full night's sleep) and then you wake up magically able to see until you turn into a pumpkin and turn blind again. But only a little bit blind, not full on blind, so your prescription glasses would be too strong. I feel a little panicked thinking about being in that situation.

When you're school age, it's so important to be able to see things. That's why I think glasses are a better bet at that age. I know so many people who went through a period of not achieving their potential at school because they were copying down work wrong and just couldn't see anything on the blackboard/whiteboard etc.

Also, when I wear contacts, I wear disposables because even as a grown up, I know I wouldn't take good enough care of hard lenses to 1) not destroy them and 2) not give myself an eye infection. And I'm not only pretty responsible now; I was about 30 mentally when I was only 8.

I think for a child I would focus on finding a pair of trendy glasses that suit the child's personality and fashion sense, so that glasses don't become something horrible to them. I still remember the pain of having to wear ugly NHS specs. You can buy some really cool specs these days - I've even met people with perfect vision who wear non-prescription lenses in trendy frames just for fashion's sake!