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.

Am a bit confused as to why you would need (and even be sold) anti-glare on ortho-k - you wear them when you are asleep. At a weekend I bimble around the house a bit sometimes to let the tear film form to remove them (in the week I put a drop in each eye and pop them out as I'm pushed for time) but I'm not in the sunshine outside at any point with them in.

Pringlecat - over time with them your eye retains the corrected shape for longer and longer. I found after a year when I missed a night (red eye from LAX) it wasn't quite sharp 18 hours after I'd taken them out, I could still watch TV 6 hours after that though. I missed a night over Christmas (three years into them) this year and was totally fine the next day right through until the early hours of the morning. I admit I'm a bit worried about if I had a major problem and couldn't wear them for a week or so but (touch wood) have never had an eye infection in 25 years of lens wearing so it doesn't bother me too much.

This thread is a great laugh, obviously the fox and association of optometrists need to do some public education regarding contact lenses.

Fox!! GOC.

Pringle, for us it's been great, not that my son didn't like wearing his glasses - but they were a pain for PE, after school sport, swimming etc. Plus even the multifocals weren't stopping his eyes deteriorating... each 6 month visit they were 0.5-1 weaker (1-2 per year).

They said if orthoK could reduce that to half current rate (hopefully halt it completely, but possibly just slow it) he would be saving 0.5-1 point of vision every year - which amounts to a lot of vision saving over a few years.

And it has halted it for nearly 18 months (and counting).

And finally for me, the temporary nature of it was a bonus, I wasn't keen to make permanent changes to his eyes before he'd finished growing or could have a say in it himself. So yes, the shape of his eye gradually slips back to his poor vision over a few days, but if they disturbed his sleep, caused infections, didn't stop the deterioration, etc, we'd not have caused harm or permanent change to his eyes.

I can see him choosing laser surgery later in life, but he needs to be much older to decide this...

My daughter wears Ortho-K lenses and has done since she was 9 (she is 13 now). We chose them because her eyesight was deteriorating rapidly and she was near the -5 threshold so it was then or never - if she'd had a milder prescription I wouldn't even have considered it at that age. (For context, I am -11 in both eyes and she was following a similar path to me. My younger DD, now 10, is also short-sighted but much more mildly, like their dad, and wears glasses).

They have been very successful for DD1 and appear so far to have arrested the deterioration in her eyesight. This is the big advantage of using them, along with the fact that she can, for example, see when she's swimming or play sport without worrying about breaking her glasses or losing a contact lens. I also think they are less hassle than daytime lenses and easier to wear as there is less scratchy movement when your eye is closed for sleep.

BUT they are rigid gas permeable lenses, not soft, and as such take a long time to get used to and are still fairly uncomfortable - DD1 sometimes asks if she can stop wearing them for a while but they only work if you wear them every night and you can't switch to glasses as backup. Sometimes she "forgets" to put them in and the next day she can't see. We also still have to nag her about hygiene and I can't see that improving anytime soon even though she is quite sensible and mature for her age.

It's also a very expensive commitment - five years ago it was 250 pounds upfront with no refund if she couldn't cope with the lenses, and we pay another 45 pounds every month (for which she gets a new pair every six months). This will need to continue until her eyes have stopped maturing, probably when she is about 21.

For those reasons I would say the benefits of Ortho-K outweigh the negatives only if you're very short-sighted or on that trajectory. But they're great if that's the case, and having spent a lifetime with severe myopia myself, I don't think anyone with a mild prescription really understands how debilitating and costly it is - I wear contact lenses but my "backup" glasses cost a more than a grand a pair, so please don't throw me a ball, I need prescription goggles for swimming or I wouldn't be able to find the pool (literally, forget not being able to read the signs), I feel unsafe driving in my glasses because the lenses are necessarily so small I have little peripheral vision ... if DD1 can avoid all that it will have been worth it.

Schnitzel, thanks so much for sharing your dd1 experience, I have made a mental note and know what to expect now.
We both wear glasses(I am quite mild, my husband is -5.0 something) so I know how uncomfortable that we have to rely on them on most of our dailies. I have to pay more for my (prescribed) sunglasses too.

I just want to add my v recent experience.
I have just stopped wearing my
Ortho Lenses, literally this week following a scare.

I am anal about hygiene, I get how important it is. Nevertheless, my left eye became red and v puffy. I went to my ortho k optometrist who wasn't concerned, said it was probably an allergy (in one eye?) and to continue wearing. I continued to wear only in my good eye. Next day I went to a walk in clinic as it was worse. After an examination the nurse suspected an ulcer and sent my to the emergency optometrist at the hospital. Fortunately there was no ulcer but she told me to stop wearing it and was probably a virus. It is better now but was enough to put me off, after wearing them for a year. It's taken me a week in limbo between not being able to see properly but unable to wear my glasses.

I'm due new lenses so am going to have a serious conversation with the ortho k optometrist in a couple of weeks. He insists it's perfectly safe but the hospital optometrist was pulling all kinds of disapproving faces.