Eyeglasses

My son, LHP in D1  used prescription  sport frames from our optometrist,  but as a pitcher they fogged up. We tried several no fog options and nothing worked, wasted $225. Switched to contacts and he complained about it, but eventually got used to it. He is a Junior now and has no issues. Hard to pitch when you can't see.

My son wears contacts. We switched to daily wear one day lenses for baseball now that’s all that he wears. We had same issue with glasses fogging but we never even talk about things with daily wear lenses

Son wore sports goggles all the time when young.  At 11 he went to contacts.  He had some stigmatism, and each eye was different in prescription.  It was super stressful for him to put them in the beginning.  As I've never worn contacts, I couldn't really help him.  He had to learn to handle them himself.  Plus a dad hanging over a kid telling him to hurry up, get them in, let's go.

HIs contacts, "daily disposables" arrived a day before his first tournament without glasses. He was scheduled to pitch to pitch an 8:00 am game.  I wanted to give him plenty of time to get them in, but I'm also the "if you're on time you're late guy".  I leave him alone in the hotel bathroom to put them in.  No pressure, plenty of time.  He's in there forever.  I start to stress on the time, then it boils over.  "C'mon son, hurry up!"  Nothing from the other side of the door.  "Hey, LET'S GO!".  Finally, he opens the door.  About 10 empty contact dailies opened and on the counter or floor.  We leave immediately for the fields.  We're late.

Son keeps saying "I can't see right."  I tell him it's an adjustment, you'll be fine just like the doctor said.  He goes straight to bullpen to warm up.  Game starts in 20 minutes.  I go to the stands and hang with the other dads.  About 10 minutes later, I see him on the bench and another kid warming up.  Coach calls me over.  "He can't throw a strike.  He also got hit three times by the catcher throwing the ball back to him and is mad as hell."

Turns out he had the left contact in the right eye, and right in left.  Oooops.

Great story.  

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My son wore the sports goggles with the transition lenses which was nice as he didn’t have to worry about sunglasses. Switched to contacts at 13. It was pure heck at first with lots of muttering & slamming stuff around in the bathroom 😂, but he got used to them & it’s a 10 second process now. He’s a pitcher as well. 

Why would he need reading glasses while pitching? Wouldn't they distort his distance vision?

I guess we don't really know that he does, since he's never worn them while playing, but he's apparently got fairly significant astigmatism to go with the farsightedness, and the optometrist seems to think he needs the glasses for regular daily use due to that so we're working from the assumption that having them while playing would also help.

He'll have the regular glasses sometime next week, figured he could go get in a little mound work with them and see how much difference it makes in that context, and then make a decision about what to do for actual practice/game time.

Sounds like he might need to fight through the wall on the contacts at some point based on replies here.

The bad thing is if you want the clearest vision for astigmatism, he’ll need toric contacts which are even more uncomfortable (& more expensive).  That’s what my son is wearing. 

It was real nice when he was younger and wore the rec specs.  When the kids were sword fighting with coat hangers or playing war with the air soft guns, didn't have to worry about anything for my kid.  

At 10, he needed glasses, but was reluctant to wear them. By 12, we got him rec specs and he would wear them only while playing sports. At 13 he wanted to try contacts, but couldn't get them in, so he stuck with the goggles. He's 18 now, wears his glasses all the time, and probably will for the remainder of his playing career. As for the fog issue, get ones that don't sit too close to the face; that way some air can get in. They will sometimes fall off the face when throwing max effort, but you can buy straps to hold them on for a few dollars. 

Just turned 50, starting wearing glasses in second grade, contacts at 14 and LASIK at 33.  I have a 13YO and a 16YO both in contacts, post rec specs and prescription Oakleys respectively.  Suffice it to say I am on a first name basis with my optometrist.  I understand wanting to save cost, but healthcare is generally not an area to cut corners.  Most important thing is you need an optometrist who you trust and who preferably is used to working with athletes.   Contacts because they sit right on the eye will offer the best vision / depth perception.  It is totally worth the learning curve of putting them in / taking care of them.  Nowadays contacts tend to be inexpensive.

My 16YO is 20/15 with his contacts, he is only slightly nearsighted.  Most optometrists would have been happy getting him to 20/20, ours works with a lot of baseball players so he kept pushing for best case scenario.  My 13YO is extremely nearsighted and has an astigmatism, with a lot of work and time we have gotten him to 20/30 with contacts, amazingly he hit .444 during the fall.  Again most optometrists would have told him OSB (other sports beckon) and given up trying to get him anywhere near 20/30.  

You mentioned your son was a pitcher, i would NOT recommend LASIK for hitters.  

My son wore rec specs until he was 13 or 14 and then switched over to contacts.  Contacts do take a couple of weeks to get used to.  It seemed like my kid would never figure it out, but he did.  I would highly suggest that your son stick with the contacts for at least a month.  If he is wearing dailies he will go through a lot of them at first but in the long run it will be worth it.

A word of advice.  If your son starts wearing contacts during the game he should make sure he keeps a couple of extra pairs with him as well as a spare pair of glasses.  If he gets something in his eye he may need to switch out the contact.  Also if his eye gets irritated from debris during a game he may need to switch over to glasses.

My son was about 14 when we realized that he needed some vision help.  In a hurry to get some sports glasses (and to save some money) I ordered what I thought was a pretty cool pair online.  Well not so much and he refused to wear them (I dont blame him after actually getting them in hand they were really bad).  He quickly learned to manage contacts (wears daily wear) and has been wearing them since.  And yes, keep extra contacts handy as many things can happen during a game.  Good luck!

joes87 posted:

A word of advice.  If your son starts wearing contacts during the game he should make sure he keeps a couple of extra pairs with him as well as a spare pair of glasses.  If he gets something in his eye he may need to switch out the contact.  Also if his eye gets irritated from debris during a game he may need to switch over to glasses.

Son was 10 when he switched from glasses to daily wear contacts.   You don't want to mess around with your/his vision.  We even moved his yearly appointments to the winter, just before baseball season.  Sometimes his eye prescription changed twice a year.

I can't stress enough the advice above.  

My 2022 pitcher wears glasses when he pitches.  We got him a pair of Oakley sport prescription frames that have a set of tinted lenses as well for the field.  They've fallen off a couple of times, so he's playing with some Chubbs/eyeglass holders to see which ones feel comfortable enough to wear.  Does not want to wear contacts.

This is probably not useful for the original poster, but if your son's prescription is changing rapidly, or if bad eyes just run in the family, ask around to see if you can find an optometrist who will do "Ortho-K."  Ortho-K are contacts you wear only at night, while you sleep, but they hold the eye in shape during the day so you can see without the contacts.  Getting measured and fitted and having them remade if they don't work quite right is time-consuming (wait until October to get started!), but it has done for my son what we'd hoped--stopped the progression of his nearsightedness, as well as giving him good (slightly better than 20/20) vision during the day.  Before Ortho-K, he wore weekly-use contacts and, before that, glasses.  Contacts were worth the learning curve, which wasn't actually bad at all.  He would still be in regular contacts if it we weren't trying to stop his vision from getting worse.  

Very interested in the Ortho K. Do you mind sharing the cost, how many more visits it has required etc. 

I don't remember the initial cost--maybe $1100?  It was not dramatically more than disposable contacts + the exam.  The first visit was to measure for the lenses; then you wait for them to be ordered and go back in a couple of weeks to get them.  Assuming they fit, your eyes adjust as you wear them over the next 2 or 3 nights.  After about a week, your vision during the day gets as good as it is going to get, and you are through for about a year.  One of my son's first pair did not fit, and we had to pay for another lens to be made, which was maybe another $100 or so and another visit.  The lenses need to be replaced after 12-14 months because they wear out, but we were able to just order the same ones again, which cost less (in both time and money) than a full fitting.  If you google Ortho-K reviews, they are not universally positive, but it has worked very well for my son.  Fourteen months after he first started wearing them, his vision without correction is about the same, maybe a tad better; the year before that, he had to get two new contacts prescriptions.  Every time he got into a hitting slump, we'd go to the optometrist and find out he needed a higher prescription.

Sport Oakley's with Clear and sunglass lenses. They have never been an issue fogging and very seldom far out of place. You can pop the sunglasses and clear lens in and out in a few seconds. We ended up buying 2 frames because it was just easier but they have never hindered his performance that I am aware of. 

obviously he will need a pair of or two of normal walkaround life glasses as well.