The importance of children’s optical health especially in the early years up to 6 years is vital to their development and achievement at school.

Early diagnoses and treatment of common problems such as lazy eye, squints, long or short-sightedness can change your child’s life for the better.

Our optometrists will ask you questions about your child’s health, lifestyle and any family history of eye problems. Your child’s vision will be checked to determine if they need a corrective prescription or further referral for lazy eye or squints.  You will receive advice on the health of their eyes. 

At Mirage, we provide comprehensive eye examinations including a non-invasive retinal scan using cutting edge technology and equipment. Our appointments are usually half an hour long based on your child’s individual needs 

Myopia Management: Protecting Your Vision

Moderate to high myopia often requires regular glasses or contact lenses, but it also increases the risk of serious eye conditions like retinal detachment and glaucoma. Myopia management solutions can slow or prevent its progression, helping reduce these risks:

– Ortho-K (Orthokeratology): Worn overnight, these lenses reshape the cornea, allowing clear vision during the day without glasses or contacts.

– Soft Contact Lenses for Myopia Control:Daily-wear lenses designed to slow myopia progression while providing clear vision.

– Mycon Spectacle Lenses: Specialised glasses that slow myopia progression by altering peripheral focus for effective, non-invasive management.

These options support clear vision today and long-term eye health.

Spectacles can be inconvenient as they can break or get lost because they get in the way during playing. 

There are a couple of options available either impact resistant spectacles to protect the eyes when playing sports or contact lenses can be worn to enable your child to play without concern

Prescription goggles are also available for swimming

Ortho-K or Orthokeratology is a way of wearing contact lenses overnight to correct your vision during the day. Custom designed overnight contact lenses are worn while you sleep and then removed each morning resulting in clear natural vision all day long. Ortho-K has been around for several decades. With the development of modern instruments it has become more popular as the accurate measurements that we can now obtain can be used to create precisely manufactured, personalised contact lenses.

Ortho-K is ideal for

• Children- Ortho-K contact lenses are worn only at home and at night and provide clear daytime vision without the inconvenience of day time contact lens wear. Research has shown that Ortho-K can be effective in myopia control, to slow the progression of shortsightedness.

• Sports enthusiasts-Wearing a night time contact lens removes the risk of damaging or losing glasses or contact lenses while involved in physical activity. Ortho-K lenses are ideal for those engaged in water sports and contact sports.

• Allergy sufferers-Allows glasses free vision even during hayfever season.

• Dry eye sufferers-Ortho-K lenses avoid the discomfort that can sometimes be caused by day time contact lenses.

How does it work?

Ortho-K corrects short-sightedness (myopia) which is a condition where the eye is effectively too long and images focus in front of the retina causing blurred distance vision. Ortho-K lenses are custom made to your prescription and cornea shape. They gently flatten the cornea by less than a hair’s width so that, on removal, rays of light coming into the eye focus correctly on the retina. To maintain this effect the lenses must be worn each night

Children need UV protection for their eyes just as much as adults do. This is because UV light affects the health of the eye and increases the risk of cataracts and macular degeneration later in life. This risk increases with exposure to sunlight over a lifetime.

Children tend to have larger pupils than adults therefore their eyes receive more UV light.

It is estimated that we receive 50% of exposure to UV light by the age of 18.
The sunglasses worn by your child must have UV protection.