11 year old son turned down for daily contacts?????
11 year old son turned down for daily contacts?????
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Tiggsy

Original Poster:

10,261 posts

281 months

Monday 19th September 2011
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My son, 11, is short sighted....not that bad and only wears glasses for reading the board at school. He plays basketball and has never worn them for that but starting to think he should (or should at least try) - having seen so many kids get their glasses smashed into their face by flying elbos in games I thought contacts...

... had a fitting on sat and the lady said he had astigmatism (sp?) and so daily lenses would be no good and he'd need monthlys....but he was too young for them on the basis that he wouldnt look after them and would get an infection. Despite my protests that was it.

Is she right - sounds crap to me. I knew kids at school his age who had old fashion lenses and did fine - before I try elsewhere, would i be wasting my time?

E31Shrew

5,963 posts

221 months

Monday 19th September 2011
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Wifey has the same issue and has to have prescription lenses fitted to her diving mask thingy. Further than that I know nothing!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astigmatism_(eye)


DKL

4,958 posts

251 months

Monday 19th September 2011
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Plenty of 1 day torics on the market - good new one from Sauflon Clariti 1 day toric. Toric is what you need to correct astigmatism in cls
It depends what his prescription is but sounds as though it would be ok.
At 11 I take each child on a case by case principle. I do occasionally send them away for a year or so but usually they are surprisingly good at sticking to the rules.

Pickled Piper

6,452 posts

264 months

Tuesday 20th September 2011
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Get him some bendy sports glasses perhaps with plastic lenses. Have a look round there is a lot of stuff available.

Call me old fashioned, but I really wouldn't be encouraging my child to insert foreign bodies in his eyes, unless there is absolutely no other option. Contacts will potentially leave him with a whole host of other problems.

pp

Tiggsy

Original Poster:

10,261 posts

281 months

Tuesday 20th September 2011
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Old fashioned!

No one (since 1979) plays basketball with glasses on! Your peripheral vision is wasted.

Managed to find an optician that will fit him with monthlys so all good biggrin

Mr GrimNasty

8,172 posts

199 months

Tuesday 20th September 2011
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Make sure you thoroughly scrutinise his cleaning & replacement regime, I'm sure you can google for the images of what can go wrong.

Tiggsy

Original Poster:

10,261 posts

281 months

Tuesday 20th September 2011
quotequote all
The plan is to only wear them on game day so I'll look after them 24/7 and sort him out when he needs them....if he wants to wear them more then I'll have a re-think

JQ

6,776 posts

208 months

Tuesday 20th September 2011
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I have astigmatism in one of my eyes, and only use contact lenses for sport or in the summer when wanting to wear sunglasses. I used to have Toric lenses, but they are a pain as they can move about - they have to sit a certain way up - plus they cost alot more than standard lenses. So following discussions with my optician I now use standard lenses. Yes, my vision is not quite as good, but I only notice it when reading, for playing sport there's no need to get Torics.

Tiggsy

Original Poster:

10,261 posts

281 months

Tuesday 20th September 2011
quotequote all
JQ said:
I have astigmatism in one of my eyes, and only use contact lenses for sport or in the summer when wanting to wear sunglasses. I used to have Toric lenses, but they are a pain as they can move about - they have to sit a certain way up - plus they cost alot more than standard lenses. So following discussions with my optician I now use standard lenses. Yes, my vision is not quite as good, but I only notice it when reading, for playing sport there's no need to get Torics.
The first optician spoke about this - I suggested that any lens was better than no lens and no glasses but she said it had to be perfect or nothing - she was a dick basically, wasted my time.

-Z-

8,262 posts

235 months

Tuesday 20th September 2011
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Tiggsy said:
The first optician spoke about this - I suggested that any lens was better than no lens and no glasses but she said it had to be perfect or nothing - she was a dick basically, wasted my time.
The thing is though, she may have had your son's best interests at heart (in her head). Selling contacts makes her money, if she was a dick she would've sold them to you without thinking about it.

SSC!

1,849 posts

209 months

Tuesday 20th September 2011
quotequote all
-Z- said:
The thing is though, she may have had your son's best interests at heart (in her head). Selling contacts makes her money, if she was a dick she would've sold them to you without thinking about it.
^^^^ this. I also have an astigmatism, I have used toric before (years back) and this year decided to get lenses again, they tried me on the toric throw away type but my vision was most certainly not as good and had to go monthlies to get better vision. So no, no "lens" will do, vision is blooming important....

And you can take that advice from someone who when 16 listened to her aunt to wore her lenses all week (long before dailies), and ended up with partial vision for 6 months!

davepoth

29,395 posts

228 months

Tuesday 20th September 2011
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The lens does need to be exactly right for an 11 year old - their eye is still developing, and an incorrect prescription can mess things up later on.

DKL

4,958 posts

251 months

Tuesday 20th September 2011
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It will depend on how much astigmatism he has.
Lots of patients do get on very well with the astigmatism not corrected but plenty don't.
It would be perfectly acceptable clinically not to correct fully especially for a set to play rugby in. All development long over with by 11 years old.

If there was some reluctance to give dailies then it may well be that he needs torics to see anything like properly and maybe even the dailies that are around aren't high enough.
Work on the theroy that the greater the disposability the fewer parameters are available.


Tiggsy

Original Poster:

10,261 posts

281 months

Monday 26th September 2011
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Just to wrap this up....


Went to a new optician who spent well over an hour with him and he now has daily disposables for sports!

Oh, and not only did specsavers say dailys wouldnt work....they also provided a written prescription from an eye test they did last week showing him -1 in left and +1 in right (despite checking his glasses which showed his old script was -.75 in both. This lead to the new optician fitting a lens to his left eye that meant he couldnt see the board, let alone the letters on it! Que much pratting around on the phone to have it confirmed specasvers where dumb and she was allowed to fit a lens we knew to be right but didnt match the written record!!! (oh, and specsavers forgot to give us an NHS voucher to get new glasses)

Summary....kid can see and we wont go to specsavers again!

Highway Star

3,615 posts

260 months

Monday 26th September 2011
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Shouldn't have got those contacts.

Your lad needs to go old skool, like Horace:



Tiggsy

Original Poster:

10,261 posts

281 months

Monday 26th September 2011
quotequote all
Oh. he'd have happily gone "grant style" biggrin It was me that didnt want him looking like that!

Now he has contacts he's convinced he needs Stoudemire style eye guards! (he also wants to be black and taller)


davepoth

29,395 posts

228 months

Monday 26th September 2011
quotequote all
Tiggsy said:
Summary....kid can see and we wont go to specsavers again!
If you'd mentioned this at the start we could have fixed the problem a lot faster. biggrin

Tiggsy

Original Poster:

10,261 posts

281 months

Monday 26th September 2011
quotequote all
davepoth said:
If you'd mentioned this at the start we could have fixed the problem a lot faster. biggrin
lol - to be honest, I assumed putting what letters a child can see and cant see into a pc was something even they could do!