Contact lenses? Seeking input from parents whose kids wear corrective lenses.

Factual Questions
1

Last month, in preparation for a week at summer camp, Michaela had a complete physical examination. Among the results of the exam is that her visual acuity is substandard. A request for authorization for referral to an eye doctor was generated and sent to our insurance company. Yesterday, we learned that the request had been denied, and that we were to make use of the vision care benefit provided with my family health insurance policy.

So far, so good. The benefit is a yearly eye exam with a nominal co-pay at any of the eyecare centers in the network contracted by our insurance company, and what is called a substantial discount on the corrective lenses purchased.

We’re planning on moving on this as quickly as possible, and would appreciate a few pointers from parents with personal experience. Michaela is ten years old, and is about to start fifth grade. She has expressed concern about teasing she might have to endure if she shows up wearing glasses, and asked us to consider contact lenses.

Any parents here whose pre-teen kids wear contacts?

Is it a good idea to get them for a ten-year old (let’s presume an advanced sense of responsibility for Michaela; whether she displays one irl or not can be fodder for another conversation :wink: )?

What kind of yearly expense should we prepare ourselves for if we were to settle on disposable contacts?

I’ve worn glasses for about forty years now, although about twenty years ago I began wearing contacts for a few years. I suspect my lack of success with them was due at least in part to the twenty years I had been developing and living with the life-style and personal habits associated with caring for glasses. Is it likely that someone whose first corrective lenses involve internalizing the associated rituals/habits of contacts would have more success?

I have nagging at the back of my mind the thought that her eyes are still developing, but I counter that with the fact that any equiment adjustments needed to account for that would arise whether it’s glasses or contacts.

What say the Teeming Millions? And I welcome the input of eye-care professionals (opticians, optometrists, counter-guy at the local LensCrafters), even if they’re not the parents of four-eyed kids.

2

For the lenses themselves, plan on around $300-500 per year, assuming a one-week wear and toss schedule. This compares pretty favorably to non-disposable lenses and the various potions needed to keep them clean. This pricing is assuming you’ll buy them through a place like Costco, or one of the many online vendors, and that there’s nothing special about the lenses like astigmatism correction or tints.

One benefit to lenses is that when her prescription changes, you don’t have to buy another pair of glasses and wait a week for them to be made - just get a box of contacts in the new Rx and off you go.

3

I got my first pair of glasses in 2nd grade, and my first contacts in 5th grade. I was given gas permeable lenses, in an attempt to slow the worsening of my eyes as they changed shape during puberty (or something like that.)

It was hard for me to get used to putting them in for the first week or two. (Taking out gas permeables is no problem at all.) I am EXTREMELY squeamish about my eyes, and to this day cannot put in eyedrops. That little puff-of-air glaucoma test? Never been successfully done on me by any doctor.

But after the first week, it was no problem. The acuity of my vision with contacts is so far superior to glasses, I can’t tell you. I was stunned coming out of the eye doctor’s with my first pair of contacts in, when I realized that I could see the individual leaves on trees. I’d never seen that before.

Gas permeables are about $100 a set, and supposedly last for 1 year, but honestly I use mine for two or three years. (One set were fine for over *ten *years, but now they make them out of softer material and they get scratched and foggy over time.) I spend about $100 a year on bottles of solution - one solution does it all: washing, soaking, rinsing and wetting.

4

I pay $60 once every six months for six months’ worth of daily-wear disposables. I can’t imagine why children’s contact lenses would cost more, but between you and me, I didn’t even know they made contacts for children until about two years ago (more on that in a moment).

I think your daughter will be OK. Look at it this way: by the time she’s 18, she’ll have had eight years of experience with contacts under her belt.

The one child that I’ve known in my life who wore contact lenses was an 11-year-old girl I knew from my work with the youth groups at church. She was thrilled to not have to wear glasses any more, but she kept losing her contacts case. YMMV

5

You can get monthly disposables for $30 (or less) per box of 6. Four boxes will cover both eyes for a year. An $8 bottle of all-in-one solution can last about two months, so that’s $168 per year total.

6

Thanks for all of the responses.

7

I started wearing gas-permeable lenses when I was twelve, I think. I had problems with them because every time any speck of dust would get in my eyes, it caused severe pain and watering (this happened a couple of times a day). Still, much better than glasses. Soft lenses have never caused me any problems, and you can wear them longer than they recommend on the box (I wear mine 3 times as long as they tell me to, and haven’t had problems.) I think your daughter would be fine…what’s the worst that could happen?

8

A number of years ago I spent 5 years working as an optician, licensed both in eyeglasses and contacts.

Soft disposable contacts can be great for young active kids. They tend to stick to the eye during hard play and sports and don’t come out easily. The exception to this is swimming, because they like water and can come loose while doing this. Since you live in Anaheim, remember this when she’s around a pool or nearby beaches.

You mention that you haven’t gotten her prescription yet. There is a slight potential problem if she needs a lot of correction for astigmatism. If so, soft contacts may not give her the best vision. The Doctor who exams her eyes will probably have the best advice.

9

You might see if you can get her a trial pair to see if she finds them comfortable and can take care of them. If she does and can, proceed. She’ll probably still need a pair of glasses for those times when she can’t wear the contacts.

Robin

10

Sorry for the slight hijack but this will probably elicit worthy info…

My wife tried to order contacts on-line the other day and they wouldn’t send them because her prescription had expired (after 1 year). She called the eye doctor who said “You must come in for an eye exam… I won’t renew your prescription at the same strength” Actually this was the receptionist stating policy so it had nothing to do with my wife’s specific situation.

Anybody know if this is common or whether there is a way around it?

11

No way around it, as far as I know. Corrective lens prescriptions expire just like medication prescriptions. It’s how the doctors ensure you get your eye checked out regularly.

Next time, order a bunch of contacts right before the prescription runs out.

12

I had the exact same thing happen to me, but it was with my glasses. Sounds like yours hadn’t been right.

I started wearing glasses in 6th grade. Got contacts in 11th; could never get used to them. My hometown is very windy, I know a lot of “contacts” people who always seem to wear glasses outdoors anyway (either they’re trying to avoid conjunctivitis, or they’ve already got it).

In college and later working in labs, I needed to wear safety glasses anyway. The issue of contacts didn’t come up until I got into a line of work that doesn’t involve labs - and then I got Lasik.

My cousin wore glasses until 11th: she’d had poor sight close up and puberty fixed her. I’d had good eyesight and got poor sight far away. (Never sure which is farsighted and which nearsighted)

Depending on what the problem is, it may not be fixable by glasses. My SiL has 20/20 vision but she can’t interpreting “blobs” at a long distance; we’ll be far enough that all any of us sees is just white blobs of differing height and width that we know to be a sign, but my family can make an educated guess and get it right. She just can’t read it until she is close enough to really see it clearly - she can’t bring herself to guessing. She’s the closest example I have now, but I had the same happen to me with many of my college classmates: I could “read” distant signs better with no glasses than they with glasses or perfect vision.

13

This is standard procedure around here, it worked very well. In my case and since I just couldn’t get used to the contacts, it saved my parents quite some money.

14

I started in glasses at four and was switched to hard contacts (anyone remember hard contacts?) at twelve, in an attempt to slow down my decrease in vision. Soft contacts came out a few years later and I jumped on the chance. Then proceeded to over-wear the contacts and had regular problems with infections, etc., but that was late teens/early twenties.

If she wants contacts and is reasonably responsible for her age, I’d say go for it. Contacts just aren’t that difficult any more, especially with disposables. Make sure the optician thoroughly discusses the need for cleanliness, regular replacements, etc.

They should be willing to give her a pair or two to try for a couple weeks before you actually buy. If she doesn’t like them, they may have a different brand/type that she will like.

Replacing contacts is easier than replacing glasses these days. Depending on her prescription, she may still need a pair of glasses for when she can’t or doesn’t want to wear contacts.

15

No, I think it was more that my problems aren’t entirely fixable by glasses. I’ve always had “back-up” glasses, and they’ve never given me vision as clear as my contacts. I have astigmatism for sure, but it’s the opposite kind from what most people have (horizontal instead of vertical or vise-versa, I forget.) I also have a helluva heavy-duty prescription, and my glasses as a kid were just so darn heavy! I always had dents in my nose, and often actual open sores from the nosepieces, even with padding and different styles. Even now, my “ultrathin, ultralights” protrude far past the frames of the glasses. Without correction, I can see clearly literally a hand’s breadth from my nose (“coincidentally”, the distance I’d hold my books at as a child), and everything after that is a singular amorphous smear.

16

If you wear contact lenses, you really do need to have annual eye exams. Wearing contacts is not risk free, and a specialist needs to check your eyes regularly. Just because you haven’t noticed any problems doesn’t mean a problem isn’t developing. These are your eyes–don’t take chances.

17

Sorry to hijack the thread, but I happen to be wearing lenses for the first time in my life today, and I have a question for lense-wearing people :

Do you/can you/should you keep the lenses while taking a shower? When swimming? These are the kind of supple lenses you keep for a month or so, in case it would change something.

18

I always took them out for showering or swimming. Lucky me, I have decent vision out of one eye, so I can still function without correction. I wouldn’t want to drive unless it was an emergency, but I could do it.

I wore contacts for several years, as a teenager and younger adult, and got to where I couldn’t wear them anymore because my eyes were getting dry. I know some people wear them for years and years with no problem, but I’m sure I’m not alone. She might do well with them now but eventually have to switch back to glasses anyway. That’s just a word of warning.

Glasses are so much easier for me anyway.

19

I’ll second WhyNot. I have extremely bad vision and high astigmatism (in fact my usual description of my vision sounds just about like hers). I see MUCH better with contacts than glasses and always have, even though my contacts don’t correct for astigmatism. I’ve mentioned it to ophthalmologists, the response is pretty much “yeah, that’s how it is”. To the best of my understanding, it’s due to the difference in the way the two methods work. (As far as I know, my astigmatism is just the regular kind though, since I never heard of more than one kind.)

clairobscur, I regularly shower with contacts in. Don’t get soap in your eyes! The only problem I have is removing contacts immediately after showering - for some reason, showers seem to dry them out and make them hard to remove.

I have gone swimming with contacts when I didn’t have glasses with me for one reason or another. You have to be very careful about keeping your eyes closed while swimming, not getting splashed in the face, etc. Do-able, but a pain. I generally wear glasses if I know I’m going to be swimming.

20

20 years ago I always took them off for swimming in gym class and water parks (which sucked because everything was blurry without them). One class I panicked after getting out of the pool thinking “oh god, I forgot to take them out!”. Then I noticed they were still both frimly in each eye.
Ever since then I have worn them swimming in pools, water parks, showers, surfing, and never lost a single contact.
I’m usually at more risk to lose one by forgetting they’re in and rubbing my eyes.