Dr. Joel Hayden: So you're wondering if it's time for your
kids to go into contact lenses. You have a few questions. I'm going to answer them. Stick around.
So you're wondering what the best context cleanses are for kids. You have a few questions.
Let's get at it. Before we do, I'm Joel Hayden. I am an optometrist at Mansfield, Massachusetts,
and welcome to the Eyecare and Wellness Channel, where I'm an optometrist and nutritionist
talking about all things eye care and wellness. Let's talk about the best contact lenses for kids.
I've been fitting contact lenses for children for about twenty-five years. I've seen a lot of
things, and I thought I would share with you some good pointers on how to really determine whether
your kids are good candidates or not, and then go into what the best contact lens that I think
your children should go into. How old should my child be when
they consider going into contacts? This can be tough because we fit contact lenses for
pretty much any age, including infants. I usually don't fit infants.
I will usually send them off to a pediatric specialist at that point, but I usually go,
11 is usually my over-under, but I have a lot of kids that motivated under 11 years old for many
different reasons. I've fit seven-year-olds up very often. Again, we need the right scenario.
Your doctor's going to help you with that, but I'm going to help you with some simple questions.
If your child's really active and they have a heavy prescription,
it can be really tough. It can be clunky. Things like baseball. One of the hardest things to do
in sports visually is hit the baseball, and they really should be seeing well. Contacts are a great
option for them at that point. Another one is something like gymnastics, where they're tumbling
and they're doing so many things and wearing glasses or even a pair of sports goggles is
really difficult to do. That's another place where it can really help to have the contact lenses.
Maybe your child has a lot of environmental allergies, and you would think that the contact
lenses may not be the best option, but going into a daily contact lens where you throw the
contact lens out every single day can be a big help. I always tell the parents to start slow.
Pick those times when you really think they're going to be advantageous to have them in the
contacts. Try to make it on a regular basis, but don't push into full-time wear until the kids are
really ready for it and want to themselves. I also really want the child to be motivated
for contacts. I want the child more motivated than the parents, because
I can't tell you how many failures I've seen come in my office, where the parent is nearly
insisting that the child goes into contacts and the child wants nothing to do with it.
The child's going to win. The child is not going to go into contact lenses if they're not motivated
to. So please, please, please don't push your kids into it. You're setting them up for failure.
It's very difficult. It's hard enough to be able to fit a motivated child
into contact lenses, but a unmotivated child, you're setting yourself up for failure as well.
Because maybe if you'd hold off two, three years down the road, the child will open up
and say "I really want to get into contacts," but if you give them a bad experience first,
it's over. I've seen pushy parents do this. They want their child to be better in sports,
so they will have a pretty heavy prescription. "We're going to put them in contacts. We're going
to get them seeing better, and then they're going to be better in sports." Stop. Really,
really make sure that child is ready. So again, I would lean on your eye doctor a lot,
but these are some really good questions to go over. How old? How often should we expect to have
them wearing contacts? These are what my concerns are. Your doctor will be wonderful at telling you
almost every optometrist out there on a regular basis fits kids.
That should really help in getting you to the point at figuring out the when and the how.
So let's get into what the best contact lenses for kids are. For me, it's a no brainer. I've
fit contacts for so long that once we started fitting daily disposables, and for anybody who
doesn't understand that, they're soft lenses, but the patient puts them in in the morning,
takes them out at the end of the day, and throws them out. Every single time they
wear a new pair of contacts, they're fresh, they're brand new. It makes
them more comfortable. It makes it a lot easier. Imagine you have a son who's playing little league
and he's sliding into second base three times a week, in contact lenses, getting dirt in his eyes.
You don't want him trying to clean those as best he can and putting them back in.
Again, that's a problem. Or you have a daughter who's doing gymnastics, and she's tumbling a lot.
In the middle of one of her competitions, a contact lens pops out, and you can't find it.
Well, it's no big deal. You're going to carry probably three or four extras with
you anyways. Just pull out a new one. Tell her to go put it in. All's good. Cost is pretty low.
Those are the reasons why I think contact lenses can work so well for these kids.
As to the best daily contact lens, because now I've told you that I want your kids in
daily contacts, which makes so much sense. The best daily contacts for children, I believe,
is the Alcon Dailies AquaComfort Plus. It's a very good lens. It's a
stable lens. It's a comfortable lens, and it's not a very expensive lens.
So if your child is losing them more often, it doesn't matter. It's not a big deal. Let's
say they're only going to wear them to baseball practice, and they're only going to wear them for
three hours. You're going to know. They're going to be comfortable. They're going to fit well.
They're going to see well, and they're going to throw them out when they're done.
Any other questions, please put them in the comments down below.
I hope you liked what I had to say. I hope this was helpful, and until next time, take care.