wearing lenses.

[sami ahmed]

1- my son who is 17 with vision of 6/36 right and left 6/2 (both uncorrected) recently had his rigid lenses but is rather reluctant to wear .he feels ok without them ..tells me me that he could wear it if it has any benefit ( halts the progression)otherwise he does not probably want the hastle.i asked the question from eye person but got rather vague answer .what would you do .i dont think(and so does he) when he is not wearing lenses he is underperforming at present in his studies or games...does lenses have any effect on disease progression.thx

[GarethB]

The subject of lens wear and KC progression is a controversial subject.

To be honest there is no such thing that stops the progression of KC. The closest thing we have is C3R which so far appears to halt the progression of mild KC.

Lenses have the benefit that your son will need them if he wants to learn to drive. Driving knowing yuor vision is below the legal standard is both illegal and dangerous.

Your son may feel he can cope well with studies without them, but he must guard against eye strain and tierd eyes do not like having lenses put in.

It does take time to acclimatise to wearing lenses which he must bear in mind too. So should he have trouble seeing he will not be able to just put them in and wear them for the day!

For me lenses helped no end in sport as I could see the brown rugby ball on a muddy pitch. The lens popped out every now and then, but I soon found it and with a bit of spit and rub on my shirt lens went back in and I carried on as if there were no problem.

At the end of the day it is his own decision.

On a work front, as employees we have a duty to ensure we correct our vision where possible for health and safety. By the same token the employer has an obligation to make reasonable adjustments to cater for the times we can not achieve reasonable vision.

A subject that perhaps needing discussion here is wilful negligance!

An example is if at work you are under HSE law required to take certain precautions to enable you to do a task safety. Deciding to ignore them and then having an accident would mean you were wilfuly neglegant and would loose upto 80% of the compensation you would otherwise be entitled too from your employer.

I know of a case where a gentleman took a short cut to get to a pub and walked down an unlit canal tow path which borderd onto a road and tripped over a mooring and broke his toe. He tried to prosecute the boat owner for failing to mark the mooring. The case was thrown out because the pedestrian was wilfully negligent because he failed to use the designated foot path which was well lit on the otherside of the road!

I wonder how this same scenario would be treated if the pedestrian had KC and without lenses would not see there was a better path to use but was in a suitable state to be able to wear lenses. Playing devils advocate it could be argued the person with KC was wilfully negligent in failing to make sure they could see properly unless they were using a white stick at the time.

Getting people to wear lenses is not easy and trying to force something onto another is often counter productive.

Regards

Gareth