Stellest Lenses

Stellest lenses look like ordinary glasses. Your child wears them the way they'd wear any pair. But built into the lens is a design that slows down how quickly their nearsightedness gets worse.

In September 2025, Stellest became the first eyeglass lens authorized by the FDA for myopia control in the United States. They've been in use in Europe, Canada, and Asia since 2020.

If you're new to the idea that nearsightedness can be slowed, our Myopia Control page covers why it matters and what the options are.

How they work

An ordinary lens corrects the blur and nothing else. The eye keeps growing. Stellest lenses have a clear central zone that gives your child sharp vision, surrounded by a precise pattern of thousands of tiny lenslets. Those lenslets create a signal in the peripheral vision that appears to slow the eye's elongation — the growth that makes myopia worse.

Your child doesn't see the lenslets or notice them working. They put on their glasses and see clearly. Most children adapt within a few days.

What the research shows

In a two-year clinical trial, children wearing Stellest at least 12 hours a day showed, on average:

• 67% less progression in their prescription

• 60% less elongation of the eye

compared with children in standard single-vision lenses.

A few things matter about those numbers.

Wear time is the whole ballgame. Twelve hours a day means essentially all waking hours — school, homework, dinner, weekends. Children who wear them part-time get less benefit. This is the honest trade-off with Stellest: it's the easiest option to start, and it depends entirely on your child actually keeping them on.

They're group averages. Some children respond better, some less. Nobody can predict which your child will be, which is why we measure rather than assume. And "less progression" isn't "no progression." Most children still become somewhat more
nearsighted. The goal is landing them meaningfully lower than they would have finished otherwise, because where they finish determines their eye health as an adult.

Who's a candidate

Under the FDA authorization, Stellest is for children aged 6 to 12 at the start of treatment, with myopia between -0.75 and -4.50 and astigmatism up to 1.50.

That age range matters. MiSight is only approved from age 8, so for a six- or seven-year-old who's already becoming nearsighted (whose myopia tends to progress the fastest), Stellest is often the option.

Stellest tends to be a good fit for a child who:

• Is becoming more nearsighted year over year

• Already wears glasses full-time and is comfortable in them

• Isn't ready for contact lenses, or doesn't want them

• Has allergies or sensitivities that make contact lens wear difficult

If your child's prescription is stronger than -4.50, or they're outside the age range, we'll talk about other options — including MiSight contact lenses — or refer you to a provider offering treatments we don't.

What parents usually ask

Do they look different? No. From the outside they look like any other pair of glasses. The lenslets are visible only on close inspection at certain angles.

Will my child's vision be blurry at the edges? Most children adapt within a few days and don't notice. A small number find peripheral vision slightly soft at first and adjust quickly.

Can they play sports in them? Yes, with appropriate frames. For contact sports we'd talk about protective eyewear, same as with any glasses.

Glasses get lost, sat on, and left at a friend's house. And when a prescription changes, new lenses take about two weeks to come back from the lab, which means your child hands
over their only pair and goes without.

For a child in myopia control, that gap isn't just inconvenient. Every day without their Stellest lenses is a day the treatment isn't working.

So we recommend keeping a second pair on hand – we offer discounts for ordering a second pair. When we update your child's prescription, that's usually the natural moment: we can order the new pair in a new frame and keep the old one as the spare, or order two at once so nothing has to be sent away.

The spare should be Stellest too. A backup pair in standard single-vision lenses will let your child see, but it does nothing for the treatment — and the weeks they spend in it add up over a year. If a full second pair isn't practical, an older Stellest pair from a previous prescription is still a better substitute than single-vision lenses.

This is a detail that's easy to overlook and genuinely affects results.

The treatment zones only work when they're positioned correctly in front of your child's eyes. A frame that's too small, too large, or constantly sliding down the nose moves those zones out of alignment. So frame selection, fit, and adjustment aren't just cosmetic decisions here.

Our opticians will help you choose a frame that suits your child's face and holds its position, and we'll want to see them back for adjustments as they grow. Bring them in any time the glasses aren't sitting right. There's no charge for an adjustment.

At the start of treatment we measure your child's axial length, the actual front-to-back length of the eye, using our MYAH imaging system, and we re-measure at every follow-up.

Prescriptions are imprecise: they change in quarter-diopter steps and shift with how tired a child is. Axial length shows us what's really happening, and it shows us sooner. We plot your child's measurements against normal growth curves for their age, so you can see whether treatment is working instead of taking our word for it.

If it isn't holding, we'll tell you and talk about what to do differently.