Can children and teenagers wear colored contact lenses?
At what age can your child wear contact lenses or colored lenses? What precautions should be taken? Our optician Sarah Marlien answers your questions.
There is no real minimum age to start wearing Contact Lenses; some children are often forced to wear them at a very young age for pathological reasons. This is the case when they suffer from severe anisotropy or keratoconus, for example.
First, it's important to understand the reasons why a child or adolescent wears contact lenses or Colored Lenses. Is it the child's choice? It is very important to know the answer to this question because it will say a lot about the child's motivation when learning to wear lenses, handling them daily, and respecting lens hygiene. Is it due to a pathology? The parent will then have a major role in supporting their child. Or is it more aesthetic?
Depending on the child's or adolescent's reason for wearing contact lenses, the ophthalmologist or fitter will guide your child toward a specific lens choice: daily, monthly, soft, rigid, etc.
It's important to know your child's level of independence because they will be responsible for respecting certain essential rules when wearing contact lenses:
- daily change of lens care solution if using Monthly Lenses,
- Change the contact lens case every month,
- Always wash your hands before handling contact lenses,
- Do not sleep with your contact lenses in,
- Remove your contact lenses during water activities
- Follow certain rules during sports activities.
To assess your child's independence, you can ask yourself the following questions:
- Are they able to remember to feed our pet? at a fixed time every day?
- Is he able to stick to a schedule?
These questions can be good tests to validate with your child his ability to manage daily contact lens wear.
However, for occasional use of colored lenses, you can be less concerned about his autonomy and ensure that the Colored Lenses are inserted and removed properly before going to bed.
Of course, before wearing contact lenses, it is very important that your child see their ophthalmologist. The ophthalmologist will then check the quality of their tears and ensure that there are no conditions that would contraindicate the use of contact lenses.
Should the number of hours they wear lenses each day be limited?
This will depend on the type of lenses prescribed. For daily disposable lenses, the ideal wearing time is 8 hours per day. If you have silicone hydrogel contact lenses, which allow better oxygenation of the eye, these lenses can be worn for 12 hours a day. Please note that it is recommended to let the eye breathe freely one day a week while wearing glasses... for example, on Sundays.
It is very important to follow these rules. If you do not, your child or teenager may begin to develop a tolerance for the lenses. They may experience dryness and may no longer tolerate contact lenses at all in the near future, not to mention the immediate health risks to their eyes.
In conclusion, your child must be old enough to understand and follow their rules. Why not start with disposable colored lenses if they're tempted by colored lenses? Please note that there are daily colored lenses with correction: Bella One Day colored lenses and Obsession Paris One Day colored lenses. Remember to have your eyes checked regularly to ensure that all precautions are being followed.