Can Teenagers Wear Contact Lenses?

Single use lenses known as daily disposables are great for active teenagers...

How do you decide when your teen is ready for contact lenses? Some parents have concerns about children being too young to wear contacts, but this should not be the deciding factor. A 3-year study conducted by the Indiana University School of Optometry found that children from ages 11 to 13 years can handle contacts well and can understand how to care for them. Consider your teen's maturity and co-ordination instead.

A teenager who follows instructions for proper lens care is as good a candidate for contact lenses as is any adult. In fact, contact lenses are well-suited to teenagers who are active in sports or outdoor activities, who are fashion or image conscious and who would like a more natural looking alternative to glasses.

When deciding on contact lens use, it is important for an eyecare practitioner to assess a teenager's vision needs and to involve the teenager and the parents in a discussion about the teenager's maturity level. There are several types of contacts, wear schedules and care regimens available. These will vary depending on the lens prescribed and the nature of the vision problem.

The following are only a few of the reasons why for teenagers, contact lenses are a great alternative to glasses.

They provide a more natural look.

Adolescence can be a difficult time and some teenagers believe that spectacles make them look and feel different from others. If you are one of these people, contact lenses can go a long way towards restoring your natural look and building your self-esteem, while giving you excellent vision. Colored contact lenses are also available either to enhance your current eye color, or to give you a different look with a new eye color.

They give you a wider field of vision.

Contact lenses provide better peripheral, or side, vision than do glasses because they sit directly on the eye and move when the eye moves. Glasses, on the other hand, sit several millimetres in front of the eye, creating a gap between the frame and the face. In addition, thicker frames obstruct a thin ring of vision. With contact lenses, however, there is no frame to obstruct your view and separate your side vision from your front vision.

They are easy to care for.

Cleaning, rinsing and disinfecting contact lenses with a recommended contact lens care system significantly reduces complications associated with contact lens wear and is often done in one step. Multi-purpose solutions are a convenient method of caring for contact lenses. When prescribing contact lenses, your eyecare practitioner will also recommend a care system suited to your type of lenses and wear schedule. There are lenses available today that never need cleaning. Single use lenses known as daily disposables are great for active teenagers as they don't require cleaning, rinsing and disenfection. Daily disposables are probably the easiest way to introduce new wearers to contact lenses.

They are better for sports.

Contact lenses are far superior to glasses for sports-minded teenagers, as glasses can fog up, slip down your nose or break during rough activity. Rather than focusing on your glasses, contacts allow you to concentrate on your activity. Contact lenses, however, do not provide any protection. Therefore, protective eyewear is not just for people who do not need visual correction devices, but also for contact lens wearers.

They allow you to wear non-prescription sunglasses.

Regardless of your age, protect your eyes from harmful ultraviolet rays when you are outside. Wearing sunglasses is not only fashionable but also sensible. Prescription sunglasses can be a hassle if your prescription changes, but contacts allow you to change your prescription and have several pairs of attractive, non-prescription sunglasses. Additionally, manufacturers cannot make prescription lenses for the style of sunglasses that have very curved lenses. Wearing such sunglasses is not a problem when using prescription contact lenses.

They can provide sharper vision.

Patients with very strong prescriptions or irregular corneas such as those with keratoconus, can wear contact lenses to have sharper vision than that achieved by wearing glasses.

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