Pediatric Care
At BostonSight, we are experts in pediatric PROSE® and scleral lens care. We successfully fit children as young as 12 months old with scleral lens devices. As a non-profit organization, compassionate patient care for all ages along with exceptional education are core pillars of BostonSight’s mission.
Meet Lensy!
Lensy is BostonSight’s friendly scleral lens ambassador. Lensy’s most important job is to help make scleral lenses less scary for young patients. Her engaging smile and large eyes make her an exceptionally friendly tool for working with pediatric patients. Plush Lensy is available at PROSE locations to support pediatric patients with a cuddly companion during their fitting process.
Lensy also assists with educating patients of all ages about scleral lenses and PROSE devices. She is the creation of Dr. Daniel Brocks, BostonSight’s Chief Medical Officer, who drew Lensy for his young children to explain his work. His pencil drawing was transformed into a graphic and brought to life as a plush toy.
Lensy even has her own book!
Follow along with Lensy as she takes her friend, Sophie Sheep, to the eye doctor to get fit with scleral lenses. The book includes coloring pages, “practice” with Lensy’s friends, and simple descriptions of scleral lens tools to help children feel more at ease during the fitting process.
Want to donate a Lensy to a pediatric patient or get a Lensy for yourself?
With a donation of $100 you can donate 10 Lensy books to a PROSE site that will use them with their pediatric patients. With a donation of $150 you can choose to donate a Lensy to a PROSE site* along with the 10 books OR you can choose to get a Lensy for yourself! (BostonSight will distribute the books/Lensy to the sites in need.)
Meet Dr. Brocks
In this brief video, Dr. Brocks discusses his inspiration for Lensy and how she helps pediatric patients.
“Learning to apply and remove a lens can be scary for kids. With Lensy, our pediatric patients have a buddy they can count on to walk them through it all. She will cheer you on and make sure your eyes are happy!”
-Dr. Bita Asghari
Associate Director of Clinical Education at BostonSight
From parents
“Our infant son was born without the ability to fully close his right eye. Every ophthalmologist we saw told us to give him lubricating ointment every three hours during the day and just leave him alone at night. We trusted their direction, but at 1 year old, we noticed increasing damage on his cornea. We scrambled to save his eye, traveling to three different ophthalmologic specialists from Florida to Pennsylvania. Each one told us that our son’s epithelial lining was decompensating, but that it was beyond their ability to help. This scenario was repeated several times with different providers. The last one said that our son’s eye was “too far gone to be worth the fight it would take to save it.” I couldn’t accept that, so the doctor referred us to a cornea specialist in Philadelphia (Dr. Kristin Hammersmith). She looked our son over and said that patching his eye shut to protect him at night, combined with wearing a PROSE lens to fully protect him during the day, would be the best chance we would have at saving his cornea and his eyesight. We traveled to Boston shortly afterward, and Dr. [Karen] Carasquillo was PHENOMENAL. We spent a week learning how to insert and remove the PROSE lens from our 1-year-old son’s right eye. Dr. C was the greatest cheerleader and trained me sufficiently well that I became very confident with managing the PROSE lens. Our son wore the lens during the daytime for the next six months, and the epithelial defects on his cornea HEALED. His eye has a new lease on life because of the PROSE lens and the staff at BostonSight. I WILL ALWAYS BE GRATEFUL TO EVERYONE INVOLVED IN THIS REMARKABLE TECHNOLOGY!!”
“I just wanted to reach out and say thank you again for thinking of my daughter. She’s been asking me more and more questions about my eyes and the special lens I wear after reading the book (because she knows I had a tumor removed which causes my dry eye). She doesn’t understand that her situation is much more severe than anything I had to go through, but I think it’s helping her process everything she is going through. Thank you for thinking of our family – your generosity really touched our hearts.”
Pediatric publications – BostonSight is the leading institution publishing peer-reviewed scleral lens articles, including articles specifically about pediatric use.
Brocks D, Carrasquillo KC, Riccobono K, and Cheung N. The Role of Contact Lenses in the Management of Ocular Surface Disease in Children. ed: Traish A. and Douglas V.P. Pediatric Ocular Surface Disease, Springer, Jun 2023.
Carrasquillo KC. Pediatric Applications. eds. Fadel D and Barnett M. Specialty Lenses: Clinical Practice. Elsevier, 2022.
Phillis K, Brocks D, Carrasquillo KC. Case Report: Use of Prosthetic Replacement of the Ocular Surface Ecosystem Treatment of Traumatic Lid Ptosis in a Pediatric Patient. Optom Vis Sci. 2020 Dec. doi: 10.1097/OPX.0000000000001612
Kamal SM, Riccobono K, Kwok A, Edmond J, Pflugfelder SC. Unilateral pediatric neurotrophic keratitis due to congenital left trigeminal nerve aplasia with PROSE (prosthetic replacement of the ocular surface ecosystem) treatment. American Journal of Ophthalmology Case Reports. 20 (2020) 100854.
“I love everything about what Lensy represents: tenderness approachability, friendliness, comfort, warmth…hope. Much like the scleral lens she embodies, scleral lenses are meant to provide comfort, happiness, and hope to our pediatric patients suffering from complex corneal disease.”
–Dr. Karen Carrasquillo
Senior VP, Clinical & Professional Affairs at BostonSight