Anyone's kid wear contact lenses?

[Mookatron]

My 9 year old has to wear glasses all the time and would like contact lenses. We have a local optician who I'd like to use but sometimes I feel like as soon as you go outside NHS stuff they try and get you to buy as much as poss (extra coatings... special lenses... etc).

The optician today told me they start from £30 a month for the disposable ones. I can see that disposable ones are best for children but I know hers will be more than that because she has a really complicated prescription.

Any experiences? Thanks in advance.

What's their prescription? Yes, you ideally want daily disposables SiH in a 9 year old as they allow maximal oxygen transmission to their cornea.

That said they don't need to use them every day and that would make it cheaper.

Another solution depending on prescription would be ortho-k, where a hard contact lens is worn overnight to give good vision without glasses the following day. It has the added benefit of reducing the progression of myopia in many children, so that they don't end up being as short-sighted as the might have been.

Thanks, that's helpful. I didn't know it was because of oxygen transmission. I think I just assumed it was because a 9 year old wouldn't clean reusables properly!

I actually don't know her prescription but she's been wearing glasses a while. I presume if ortho-k was a possibility the optician would've mentioned it by now but I'll ask.

I think I'll make an appointment for a chat as I want all the info before I say she can have contacts!

The trouble is I don't want to mess about being stingy with a child's eyes (where I might cut corners myself) - but equally it sometimes feels like the opticians know this and will sting you for anything they can! Maybe I'm too cynical.

No its the SiH (Silicon hydrogel) part that's for the oxygen transmission.

It is the cleaning and infection risk which means that daily disposables are better along with less potential toxicity risks from cleaning solutions.

Not all opticians do ortho-k as you need a special machine to map the curvature of the cornea. But they should be able to chat to you about that too.