Who is suitable for orthoK?

The following is a list of candidates suitable for orthoK:

  • Those unable to wear daytime contact lenses due to allergies or dry eyes
  • Active people who do not want the inconvenience of glasses or contact lenses when participating in sports
  • Those interested in LASIK eye surgery but are not quite ready or too young
  • Children whose myopia (short-sightedness) is getting progressively worse
  • People with mild to high myopia
  • People with mild to moderate hyperopia
  • People with presbyopia (loss of clear reading vision in middle age)

Myopia Control

The number of children who are becoming myopic has grown rapidly in modern times. The Centre For Disease Control in the United States has estimated that by the year 2020, 50% of the world’s population will have myopia. The results of recent scientific studies point to orthoK as one of the best options for controlling myopia progression. Although orthoK has been shown to slow myopia progression in the groups studied, the same results cannot be guaranteed in every individual case.

Why is Myopia Control important? Myopia can lead to sight threatening conditions such as retinal detachment, macular disease and glaucoma later in life. Trying to slow down the progression of myopia is important as there is a higher risk of developing these sight threatening diseases when you are more myopic. The younger a child is when they first exhibit myopia the more likely that they will progress to high levels of myopia.

Click here to see a summary of the latest myopia control research

Can OrthoK be used by Children?

Children make great orthoK lens wearers. Most practitioners report that children follow instructions and perform well because of their strong motivation to see clearly. The orthoK lenses are inserted just before going to bed and taken out in the morning. This means that children will not need to handle their lenses during the day or at school. When lenses are inserted for the first few nights, there will usually be some mild discomfort but this is greatly reduced when the eyes are closed. Over the first weeks of orthoK, discomfort gradually becomes less and less.

For Patients

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