Can I choose “contact lenses” after congenital cataract surgery?

  After surgery for a small child with congenital cataract, an IOL cannot be implanted for the time being. How to correct the high degree of hyperopia caused by lens loss is an important issue for physicians and parents. Frame glasses are a very familiar traditional way of correcting refractive errors. But for infants and toddlers who are a few months old, it is really difficult to honestly wear a pair of frame glasses. Farsightedness in infants with aphakic eyes can reach +10D to +20D, or 1,000 to 2,000 degrees. These high prescriptions result in very thick lenses. The magnification is about 30% when looking at an object. There are also problems with the prismatic effect of the glasses, distortion of vision and narrowing of the visual field. These can make the quality of vision after correction very poor. The period before IOL implantation is a critical period of visual development for infants and children. After surgical removal of the cataract, active visual stimulation is required to control the development of amblyopia. If the child cannot persist in wearing a lens to correct high hyperopia, or if the quality of vision is poor after correction, the treatment of amblyopia is bound to be compromised.  We recommend the use of a rigid corneal contact lens, or RGP for short, to correct high hyperopia in aphakic eyes. This is a highly oxygen permeable rigid contact lens that fits snugly to the cornea, closer to the ophthalmological node than ordinary glasses, for better correction. Its retinal imaging magnification is generally 4% to 10%, even for patients with monocular aphakic eyes, which does not produce diplopia and is conducive to maintaining binocular monovision. Since the lens can rotate with the eye, there is no obvious prismatic effect, avoiding the generation of ring dark spots, the aberration and chromatic aberration are not obvious, and the peripheral field of vision is large. In terms of visual quality, it is significantly better than frame glasses.  It is obvious that RGP has good visual effect, but there are limitations, the main problem is that it is not as convenient as ordinary glasses to take the glasses and wear them, is there any difficulty for infants and children to wear them? This is the biggest question for parents, because RGP is more complicated than frame glasses, especially when trying on the lenses, and it is difficult to observe the fitting status for infants and children. However, these problems can be solved by the professional optometrists in our department. After the lenses are fitted, the parents are responsible for the daily care of the lenses and the daily removal of the baby’s glasses. Professionals will guide you through the process. For parents who are careful, it is not difficult to do so, as RGP is in contact with the cornea, and improper handling or contamination can cause complications such as corneal scratches and keratitis. Therefore, although the choice of RGP to correct the baby’s farsightedness is effective, it also requires more patience from parents to ensure the health of their children.