Welcome to question of the day #140

Welcome to question of the day #140

One of my patients is a 9 year old girl who wants to wear daily disposable contact lenses when playing football (soccer). She has been wearing glasses since the age of 3 years old and I have seen her every year since then. Her prescription is:

Right +4.50/-3.50 x 175 6/5

Left +6.00/-2.75 x 180 6/5

She has neveworn contact lenses before but her mother is an experienced wearer. What should I do?

The first thing that came to me was, does this patient have keratoconus, but as she has been seen regularly for six years it is likely that progression in her astigmatism would have been detected. The other thins that came to me was the excellent visual acuity and well done to everyone who has helped get these values.

A web search indicates that it is highly unlikely that a daily disposable contact lens is avaiailbe in the patients prescription so a bi-monthly or monthly contact lens would be the next option.

My experience of fitting female children with lenses is a good one especially when they are to be used for dancing, ballet or sport. This type of patient sticks to the rules because they understand that if they breach them, then contact lens wear will cease.

While it is helpful that the mother is an experienced contact lens user there may be a need to explain to the her why daily disposable lenses are not an option.

The most important aspects of this are to make sure that the the mother and child understand the need for cleaning the lenses and can demonstrate each step, the child can easily remove the lenses and that a silicon hydrogel material is used.