Contact Lenses for kids

[Thaigal]

My 8 year old son has just been discharged from the hospital (orphoptists) as his eye sight is now quite good, just a little bit down in one eye but nothing to worry about etc and his 'good' eye is actually better than the average adults eye sight...

This is great news as at one point it was thought he'd never even have driving test standard sight. The thing is he is constantly being teased at school about his glasses and has asked if he can just get contact lenses instead so the teasing will stop but he'll still be 'wearing glasses' in a way...just "invisible ones".

Do children as young as 8 have contact lenses? I was told they can get them as long as I pay for them, anyone know more?

Thaigal, I'm an optometrist and I would be reluctant to fit contact lenses to someone so young. Contact lenses are fine if used correctly, not overworn, and good hygiene maintained but most 8 year olds are not that responsible! Also some children ( not all) are inclined to have oversensitive eyelids, we would check this by everting the eyelid ( turning it inside out!) to check for little lumps called papillae. If this are present it would be a bad idea to fit contact lenses. The youngest person I tried to fit was 10 and in the end she didn't have the dexterity to insert/remove the contact lenses. Otherwise I have fitted some 12-14 year olds for the simple reason that I felt that with the particular sport they played, contact lenses were a safer option than glasses. Even then I try to limit them to sports only, with the odd special occasion thrown in. Opinions do vary from one optometrist to the other but most colleagues I know would feel the same as me.

Forgot to say, that if you did go ahead, possibly some of the new generation of silicone hydrogel contact lenses would be advisable as they let more oxygen through than conventional lenses.