Can My Child Swim and Play Sport in Ortho-K?

For a lot of families this turns out to be the deciding question, and it is usually asked slightly apologetically, as though sport were a lesser consideration than the clinical ones.

It is not. Whether a treatment fits a child's actual life determines whether they stick with it, and adherence over several years matters more than small differences in effectiveness on paper.

The problem with glasses in sport

Anyone whose child plays sport in glasses already knows the issues. Frames slide, fog, get knocked, and get broken. In contact sports they are a genuine hazard rather than an inconvenience.

The more serious problem is the one parents rarely see. Children take their glasses off to play, and then spend the entire game or training session functionally uncorrected. A moderately short sighted child playing without correction is not seeing the ball until it is close, is not reading play developing at distance, and is quietly performing well below their ability. Many of them stop enjoying the sport without ever connecting the two things.

What orthokeratology changes

Because the lens is worn overnight and removed on waking, the child spends the entire sporting day with nothing on their eyes at all.

That means no frames to fog, slip, break or be knocked into the face. It means full uninterrupted peripheral vision, which frames restrict and which matters in almost every field sport. It means no lens to dislodge in contact, and nothing to lose on a windy oval.

For swimming the advantage is larger still and worth being precise about, because it is frequently misunderstood.

Contact lenses and water are a genuinely bad combination. Organisms in pool water, and particularly Acanthamoeba, are difficult to treat and cause serious infections, so wearing daytime contact lenses to swim is not something we would ever recommend. That restriction applies to soft daily lenses too.

Orthokeratology sidesteps the problem entirely, because there is no lens in the eye when the child swims. They see clearly in the water with nothing to protect, nothing to lose down the pool drain, and no goggles needed for vision purposes.

For a child who swims competitively, or who spends summer in the surf, this is usually the single most persuasive point.

What it does not change

A few things are worth being straight about.

Protective eyewear for high risk sports is still appropriate. Orthokeratology removes the need for corrective glasses, not the need for protection in squash, cricket or anything involving a hard fast projectile.

Sunglasses still matter. Clear vision without glasses tempts families to skip sun protection, and children accumulate a substantial proportion of their lifetime ultraviolet exposure before adulthood.

Overnight trips need planning. Camps, sleepovers and away tournaments mean taking lenses, case and solution, and either supervising the routine or being confident the child can manage it unsupervised. Most children of secondary school age manage well. For younger ones it is worth a conversation before the first camp rather than during it.

The part that runs underneath

None of the above is the clinical reason to consider orthokeratology. The clinical reason is that it slows the elongation of the eye that drives short sightedness, and that benefit accrues quietly whether or not the child plays a single game.

The sporting advantages are real, and for many children they are what makes the treatment appealing enough to sustain. It is worth understanding both, because a family choosing purely on convenience may not appreciate what else they are getting.

Where to from here

If your child is active and their glasses are getting in the way, that is a practical problem with a practical solution, and it happens to sit alongside a clinical one worth addressing anyway.

At Noranda Optometrist we fit orthokeratology for children and we build the routine around what the family can realistically sustain, including sport, travel and camps. If glasses are getting in your child's way, that is worth a conversation.

This article is general information and is not a substitute for an eye examination. Please book a consultation to discuss your child's suitability.