Contact lenses for children

[Suffdad79]

Anyone have any experience with their kids wearing contact lenses? I have worn them for the last 20 years and now the kids are wondering about wearing them too. Both my children have sadly inherited my eye sight and wear glasses. My ds (nearly 9) especially struggles with glasses because they are a pain for playing and they do seem to have affected his self-confidence.

My googling so far has found that there isn't really an age limit as such - it's more about whether the optician can satisfy themselves that the child can manage to put them in and take them out safely and follow basic cleaning instructions.

Going back to my school days, I know I would have jumped at the chance to wear contacts instead of glasses so I can only see the good in letting my children have the opportunity. What is everyone else's experience of this?

dd is in charge of all her own care. She seems to have no probs with tear films or with her lenses getting mucky so she doesn't need to do a deep clean very often- maybe once every couple of months.

That's a fascinating site on myopia control. I had no idea this was possible. I'm not sure if night lenses viable for me (I have very dry eyes and gave up wearing lenses years ago), but it might suit DS4 who has inherited my eye problem. Astigmatism is severe with me, but as middle ages I now wear varifocals. Does that still work with night lenses?

middle aged not ages! Have lost my glasses and wearing an old & inadequate prescription. Should get offline and do some more tidying up. They have to be somewhere.

Dds optician said that astigmatism correction is trickier with ortho-k. Having said that, she seems to have corrected dds.

I think for yourself you would need to talk to an optician who does ortho k.

Thanks, yes, I will look into it next time I am in town.

I have some astigmatism and the OrthoK works fine for me.

I was close to giving up on soft lenses because of my eyes feeling so dry, the OrthoK are fine - you're mostly asleep when you've got them in, at weekends the tear film in the morning is fine because I have time to potter around a bit, it's just in the working week when I need to be up and rolling fast that I need the drops.

It's mostly independent opticians that do the OrthoK, I haven't found a high street branch that does it, this should help you find a local optician.

Meant to add, I've just started needing reading glasses - the OrthoK can't correct both as I understand it, but my reading prescription is very low at the moment (+1). I've just got reading specs and use those over my corrected OrthoK vision. You wouldn't need varifocals as the distance bit gets corrected by the OrthoK iyswim.

You have corrected vision with the lenses in as well so if I'm eg reading in bed after putting the OrthoK's in then my reading specs work just fine.

My ds started wearing contact lenses just before he started secondary school. He had glasses but refused to wear them.

He wears daily disposables and gets on really well with them.

Many different opinions here :)

I agree. Depending on the situation you can choose contacts, glasses or the OrthoK.

There’s no reason kids can’t be wearing them – they are suitable for correcting eye defects even in infants!
But of course there are obstacles because parents have to make sure that their children are taking good
care of the contact lenses. Here you can find a balanced opinion on children and contacts

Want a complete ebook with images? Here you have the complete contact lens guide

I really depends on if your child can handle lenses themselves. Daily disposables are the best as they don't have to do a daily cleaning routine. Get a proper prescription from the optician of course, but make sure to buy your lenses online - it's a lot cheaper.

Here's an article that might be useful: www.feelgoodcontacts.com/eye-care-hub/at-what-age-can-my-child-wear-contacts