Contact lenses - what age?

[Bonsoir]

DD is 9 and wants to try contact lenses. Has anyone's child managed contact lenses at this age?

If she has a very strong blink reflex, and they're soft lenses, then she could put them on the cornea of her eye, close her eye and move her eyeball to find the lens, as it were.

My mum could never put the lens straight over the centre of her eye, and neither could I - the optician, god love him, tried for half an hour, but I just kept closing my eye (I was 16) and in the end he gave in, told me to put it on the white bit and it would slide into place when I closed my eye and moved my eyeball around. And that's how I put my lenses in every day for 20 years.

It did mean that I could only every have soft lenses though; hard and gas-permeable lenses needed to be placed over the pupil.

Cote - both hard and gas-permeable lenses can slip out of position and need to be poked back, from watching friends with them. Soft lenses pretty much stay where they should be, unless your eyes are FILLED with rain (been there, cycling in the rain, eyes drenched, one lens swims away...)

Corus - back in the 1980s, we had a lodger staying in our home, who used to keep his hard lenses in a hanky in his back pocket (a clean one, at least) and when he wanted to put them in, he would always put them in his mouth first. I don't know how he didn't get an infection!

I've worn them for over 30 years. My eyes are still healthy. I started at 16 because that was the youngest then, but my oldest got them at 14.

I was 21 before I could get them in and out

DH had them from 11 though no problems.

I tried them before. I just gave up too easily.

Thumbwitch - I do realise that a contact lens may momentarily slip out of position for whatever reason, but you don't need to "manipulate" it back into place. As you said, you just blink once or twice, move your eye for a second and it pops back in place over the iris. It is instinctive and takes a second.

DD2 tried for ages at the opticians when she was 11, bht couldn't get the hang of lenses.

She´s just 13 and I suspect she'll ask for another try anyday.

DS1 has had them since he was 9. He has daily disposable soft toric lenses & got the hang of it straight away. He wears them for sport & if he's going out & doesn't want to wear his specs.

He had a real lecture from the optometrist about hygiene & how to recognise when you should take them out immediately etc. I have worked for opticians for years so he had heard the odd horror story which probably helped.

It is so individual, some 9 year olds are fab with them & others need another couple of years.

DS loves his & can actually see a little better with them, although he wears his specs 90% of the time.

My 11 year old wears daily disposables and gets on just fine with them.

I find I do occasionally need to manipulate mine back to position, with both rigid (which I wore for 20 years) and soft lenses (been wearing those 10 years). It tends to happen if I have inadvertently rubbed my eyes when tired. About half the time they pop back themselves, the other half I have to rub them back through my eyelids.

Re extended wear ones, my optician says the benefits of less handling are massively outweighed by the risks of keeping them in all the time, I did used to wear mine 24/7 when the DCs were babies and I was up a lot in the night (I'm blind as a bat), but now I only keep them in overnight once in a while.

I started with gas permeable lenses when I was 18, as my eyesight was getting worse and there was no way I wanted to wear glasses at university. They were quite tricky to get in and out, and not to lose, especially after taking them out when I got home at 3am after drinking. I switched to daily disposables about 10 years ago, and they are way better -don't have to be cleaned, easier on the eyes but they are relatively expensive at £25/month. My suggestion would maybe be to try out contacts at weekends only for a while perhaps? An optician should let you buy one or two boxes of the disposable lenses to allow DD to try them out.

I've been wearing contacts since I was about 12, it was a godsend. If she's sensible then why not give them a try? I've been using extended wear for seven years now and at an eye examination last month, my eyes were found to be in perfect health (touchwood - ha!) so I think extended wear suits some more than others. That's why they ask you to do the daily wear / one night / two nights build-up at the start. They have actually improved the health of my eyes (as I was a nightmare for sleeping in ordinary lenses!)

I started with hard lenses when I was 15 (a couple of weeks of teachers asking if everything was all right at home due to my tearful appearance!). Switched to gas permeables for 20 years, then wearing time crashed - that 20 years is all you get with them. Now on soft monthly disposables; stopping the hard lenses let my corneas change shape and unaided vision also crashed!

if they are disposables I'd say yes if she is responsible. Absolute rules: NEVER spit on them or let them touch water (buy her some suitable eye drops if she gets dry eyes). Don't wear them swimming or in the shower. She will also need to have a pair of glasses kept up to date at all times.

I have never had an eye infection in over 30 years of lens wear.

Every optician I have seen has said long wear/extended wear are a bad, bad idea. Your corneas need oxygen, or they can start growing extra blood vessels.

How do you not let water touch your lenses? Surely you wash your hands with soap, then rinse before picking them up from their box. Rinsing inevitably means that your hand is wet when you touch the lenses - i.e. water touches them.

How do you not let water touch your lenses? Surely you wash your hands with soap, then rinse before picking them up from their box. Rinsing inevitably means that your hand is wet when you touch the lenses - i.e. water touches them.

Even one towel fibre would mean taking out the lens in question again and washing it with solution, and washing hands again.

It sounds like a very painful (literally) way of going about putting lenses in. If even a single fiber goes into your eye, you'll be in agony & will have to take lens out, wash it with solution, and wash your hands again.

What do you think is in tap water? And what about the dirt, skin cells, possibly bacteria etc that your hands might pick up from the towel?

The problem with tap water is that it can sometimes contain the Acanthamoeba parasite - which if on the contact lens can start to "eat" into the cornea and cause blindness very quickly. I very rarely shower with my lenses in in case I get water in my eyes. Given the choice, I'd wet my lenses by licking them rather than wetting them with tap water but that's not something I'd advise of course!

Go for it! If she's sporty, it will make a huge difference to her life as well. My cousin had them from age 10. Her prescription was still changing, so she had six monthly checks with the optician.

I think the message about corneas needing oxygen and thus extended wear a bad idea is slightly outdated. I'm informed (by my optician) that the ones I'm wearing let more oxygen in than my previous ones (monthly disposables, taken out each night) and my eyes are in better shape now I'm wearing the extended wear. I am very careful with hygiene and never take them out without washing (and drying) my hands carefully, and very careful in the shower try not to get water in my eyes. I've only had one eye infection since wearing lenses and that was with the monthly disposables.

My opticians told me their youngest contact users were seven years old. They need to be able to demonstrate them can put them in and take them out easily, and safely, first, apparently.