Specialty services

Night Lenses for Sport

Every short-sighted athlete has had the same conversation with themselves. Glasses fog, slide and break, and in most sports they are simply not allowed. Daytime contact lenses dry out, blow out in contact, and must not go anywhere near water. Laser surgery is permanent, expensive, and not available to anyone whose prescription is still changing — which rules out most athletes under twenty-five.

Night lenses are the option most people have never heard of, and for sport they are often the best one.

What night lenses are

Night lenses — also called orthokeratology, ortho-k or overnight contact lenses — are rigid lenses worn only while you sleep. They gently reshape the front surface of the cornea overnight. You take them out in the morning and see clearly through the day with nothing in your eyes and nothing on your face. Nothing is cut and nothing is permanent: stop wearing them and the cornea returns to its own shape over days to a couple of weeks. Full detail, including cost and the safety rules, is on our orthokeratology page.

Why sport is where they make the most sense

Nothing in your eye while you play. No lens to dry out, shift, or be lost in a tackle. No frame to fog or break.
Nothing to take out before water. Swimming, surfing and diving are the situations where day lenses carry real infection risk. Night lenses sidestep that entirely.
Full peripheral vision, with no frame edge in the way.
You can wear any sunglasses or goggles you like — ordinary ones, not prescription ones, which are cheaper and far easier to replace.
Completely reversible. Nothing is cut. Stop wearing them and your eyes return to their own shape over days to a couple of weeks.
It is not surgery, so a still-changing prescription is not a barrier — the lens design is simply updated.

Sport by sport

And by job

For young athletes, there is a second benefit

If a young player's glasses prescription has climbed every year, night lenses are also one of the evidence-based options for slowing the progression of myopia in children. That matters beyond sport: short-sightedness is not just an inconvenience, it is a lifelong risk factor for retinal detachment, glaucoma and macular disease, and the risk rises with how short-sighted an eye becomes. We measure axial length at every review so a family can see whether progression is actually being slowed. See myopia control.

The water rule, which we do not bend. Night lenses are never rinsed or stored in tap water, tank water, bottled water, pool water or river water — only in the solution we prescribe — and they are out of the eyes before swimming, showering and spa pools. Acanthamoeba, the organism behind the most feared contact lens infection, lives in all of those. Our partner optometrist Jagrut Lallu is a co-author on a published case report of orthokeratology-related Acanthamoeba keratitis in a 13-year-old, so we would rather tell you about it plainly at the start than not at all. Nearly all of that risk is preventable with habits we can teach in a single appointment.

Optometrists for night lenses for sport at Rose Optometry

You will be seen by one of seven therapeutically qualified optometrists — all University of Auckland graduates, all able to prescribe eye medication where it is needed, and all of whom examine patients from six weeks of age. Night lenses for sport is part of their clinical practice.

Jagrut Lallu — Partner Optometrist · BOptom (Hons), MSc Specialty Lenses (Hons), FIAOMC
Jacqueline Rowe — Partner Optometrist · BSc, BOptom
Emilie Lawson — BOptom (Hons) · Accredited Glaucoma Prescriber · ACO Certificate in Advanced Contact Lenses
Jason Shen — BOptom (Hons)
Jessica Wood — BOptom (Hons) · Clinical Research Optometrist, New Zealand Eye Research Centre
Stella Wong — BOptom (Hons)
Anjali Hira — BOptom (Hons)

Book a free night lens chat

Fifteen minutes, no cost, and the quickest way to find out whether your eyes and your sport suit night lenses.

New patient — book a comprehensive eye examination (45 minutes, includes imaging and full pretest), $129 for adults, $79 for children and school students.
Already a Rose patient — book your eye examination here.
Want to talk about night lenses first? — book a free 15-minute Ortho-K chat, no cost and no obligation.
Ready to be fitted — new ortho-k / night lens fit (30 minutes).

Or call 07 847 3195, or get in touch. Rose Optometry, 38 Lake Road, Frankton, Hamilton. 07 847 3195

Reviewed by Jagrut Lallu — BOptom (Hons), MSc Specialty Lenses (Hons), FIAOMC, Therapeutic Optometrist & Contact Lens Specialist, Partner, Rose Optometry. Last reviewed 19 September 2026.