Can Children Get Laser Eye Treatment?

By Marie R Sioco

 

For the eyes to grow and coordinate correctly, great vision is extremely crucial. This becomes increasingly, specially as a kid reaches the age of 8. When a child begins to have uncorrected eyes, it can result to lasting bad eyesight and perhaps lazy eyes, which is why early eye examinations are necessary for healthy eyesight later in life.

For kids, the most widespread forms of vision correction are glasses and contact lenses.
When it comes to laser eye treatment, is it an appropriate solution for children?
The difficulty with children, specially before school age, is getting them to love and wear their specs. Much to the frustration of their parents, children hate their specs so much that they go out of their way to conceal or damage their glasses. Kids also rarely take care of their belongings and specs are no exclusion. Children's eyeglasses hardly ever last many years even though the frames are quite robust and the lenses are made of polycarbonate, the durable material safety glasses are made of. This all comes with being a kid.

On the other hand, contact lenses are becoming more significant for children as a form of vision correction. Vision correction is maintained without the fear of broken specs with a child wearing contact lenses. It is rather strange that children are not as fazed with contact lens wear as compared to adults who often feel irritation. Most children will willingly hold it in their eyes for the entire day once the contact lenses settle on the eyeballs.

The first time the optometrist fits it into the child is the only drawback with contact lens wear. Children are mostly uncomfortable with doctors and others in the health occupation and optometrists are no different. Trying to put a little piece of plastic into the eye of a weeping, shrieking child is quite a problem. Not only that, but the fear of eye infections associated with contact lenses commonly discourages parents to let their children to attempt this kind of vision correction.

Laser eye treatment has been used infrequently in children as young as the age of 3. Having a permanent form of vision correction at a young age is more likely to increase the chances of normal optical development without the problems connected with traditional methods of vision correction. Due to this, laser eye treatment for children may give the impression of being the most effective means to correct children's eyes.

There are, sadly, a lot of disadvantages to laser eye treatment that must be discussed.
There are a large number of children who wear eyeglasses before school age have very high prescriptions. Hyperopia, astigmatism, or a combination of both are simply a selection of of the most common problems. These problems can be corrected by recent laser eye treatment procedures in adults, although just up to a limited point. Children in need of vision correction frequently have prescriptions much higher than what is recommended for laser eye treatment.

That is not to say that myopia is unusual in children. Many children who wear their first pair of eyeglasses commonly acquire myopia during their first years in school. Myopia frequently begins at a small degree so the correction required now falls into the safe range of corrections possible for laser eye treatment. However, myopia results to changes in vision and it can in fact worsen throughout the years so if laser eye treatment is performed, this would lead to future procedures after a few years. This is why 21 years old is the minimum age for one to undergo laser eye treatment.

This is the right age when your eyes, just like your height, cease changing. Yearly eye examinations are the right approach to ascertain if your vision has stabilized since the exact age at which eyes stop changing varies from person to person. A minimum of 12 months of stable eyesight is needed before laser eye treatment is recommended.

While there have been leaps and bounds in laser eye treatment advances in the past 10 years, the operation required to repair children's eyes have not been fully explored. Currently, laser eye treatment for children is at an observational point; however, with technological improvements, this can be a possibility in the near future.

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