Optician / primary kids with contacts

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Hi advice please - my 8yr old yr4 is very sporty and enjoys all ball games and team games - however he wears glasses and I've unnoticed that often he draws back from a tackle because he is thinking about the glasses - he doesn't header the ball and a basketball has often hit his face which is v. Painful with glasses on.
I am wondering if he should try contacts - did anybody else start young because of sports - if not what should I do instead . I was very spirt but didn't try lenses until I was 15 and noticed it made a big difference to my confidence on pitch. He is far more sportier at a much younger age than I was. Thanks

I had lenses from 13, I mix and match now.

Opticians will prescribe them for children.

I'd advise getting dailies because

1. There is no cleaning and

2. there is no problem if he loses one playing sports.

DD got contact lenses age 11 and has got on well with them. Dont know about having them younger, but they need to be confident putting them in and taking out by themselves.

I have known children as young as 4 or 5 use contacts, although this was because they needed to as glasses didn't correct their vision as well. The parents were responsible for the care of the lenses.

My 7 year old has started mentioning contacts and we were told that there was no minimum age, just when I felt he was ready. He's mentioned it a few times since so I think this will be something we'll be looking at within the next year. I'm not sure how he'll get on but we'll give it a try.

Ds2 has been wearing contacts since aged 9
Never had any issues
I would definitely recommend Daily lenses

I've worn then since I was about 9 or so. Initially hard ones as I don't think dailies were about (showing age) but swapped to dailies when they came about more readily and have been wearing since for mid be about 25 years now.

Thank you - I've made an appt to see optician for a fitting next week - and we will take it from there.

You could also look at OrthoK lenses. They are supposed to be good for kids - you put the lenses in at night, sleep in them, pop them out in the morning and hey presto - clear vision all day.

The downside is they may take some getting used to as they are 'hard' type lenses - I'd had gas permeables years ago and then dailies after that so didn't find them too bad. Also they need cleaning in the morning so the usual old school contact lens caveats apply about that.

I've had them for the 3 years now and love them, I was struggling with dry eyes in the day with my lenses and wearing them less and less but hated glasses so these were the perfect solution. They're also good for the eyes in that there is no danger of wearing them for too long in the day etc.

Thanks RocknRoll - just googled these and they seem more practical at this age. But they seem much more expensive overall - consultation is about £150-200 - then they cost £50per month - is this the case?

£50 a month is probably about right - I pay £45 month DD to the optician and then pay for solutions (Costco or the internet is your friend for those). On the other hand though you don't have to pay for specs, prescription sunglasses etc.

It's one of those things that you'd have to weigh up I guess, they are an incredibly great solution for hassle free perfect vision in the day but the cost is more than going for disposables etc. Perhaps see how he gets on with disposables for a bit and then if he stays really keen on sports switch to OrthoK.

I am a optical dispenser and we've had kids as young as 6 in for contact lenses. General rule of thumb always dailies where prescriptions allow and he will have to be able to put in and remove himself, they will teach him this, with your supervision on hand washing etc. The younger the better for teaching kids about lenses in my opinion

It's good to teach good hygiene with contacts but I would have reservations about having a child so young wearing contacts. I use dailies and have done so for about 15 years. I have periodic problems where my eyes become very sensitive and painful which is only relieved by stopping contact use. My experience /belief is your eyes become more sensitive /drier generally over time with daily contact use. I fully expect that eventually I will have to stop using contacts and revert to glasses.

Personally from my own experience and with my own children I would wait until they were adults to start daily contact use.