Advanced Contact Lens Fitting
Are contact lenses for you?
There are many choices of contact lenses and knowing what will work best can be a challenging decision. Many factors go into prescribing proper lenses including visual correction, lifestyle and eye health. By offering many different options and tailoring them to each individual’s needs we strive to offer the best quality and well fit lenses possible.
Contact Lens Options
Contact lenses are plastic or polymer discs that float over the cornea that are fabricated with a refractive correction to improve overall vision.
These are some of the available options:
- Daily disposable
- Soft lenses, spherical and for astigmatism (toric)
- Monovision
- Soft multifocal/bifocal contact lenses
- Rigid Gas-permeable lenses (RGP)
- Hybrid lenses
- Scleral Lenses
- Customized cosmetic tinted
Reviewing lifestyle goals is often the first step to choosing the appropriate contact lens. Whether to minimize glasses wear on the weekends, facilitate sporting activities, or rehabilitating a diseased cornea we will make every effort to achieve an individualized outcome for every patient.
Advanced diseases that can be treated with Specialty Contact Lenses
There are many diseases for which contact lenses can improve the health of the eye surface or provide tremendous improvement in vision. For some of these conditions, insurance companies will cover the costs of fitting and/or lenses because it may be considered medically necessary. Some advanced corneal diseases that can be helped with specialty contact lenses include disorders of corneal shape, including high or irregular astigmatism, keratoconus, pellucid marginal degeneration, and post surgical (Corneal transplant, LASIK, etc.).
There can also be specialty lens options that help rehabilitate the cornea for patients with dry eye syndrome, Graft vs. Host Disease, Sjogren’s syndrome, Steven’s Johnson Syndrome, neurotrophic keratopathy, and cases of scarring including trauma or herpetic infection or additional cosmetic improvement. For patients with very severe dry eye disease, using a scleral contact lens with a fluid filled reservoir can provide relief while improving overall vision.
What to Expect?
Providing adequate time to allow for appropriate fitting, follow up appointments, including learning how to apply, remove and care for lenses is a critical part of achieving adequate success when wearing contact lenses. This may require an initial comprehensive evaluation including testing to determine the appropriate fit and type of lens to maintain ocular health.
At times it may require multiple visits to achieve an adequate fit even attempting a different modality throughout the process. Continuing individualized care schedules including appropriate cleaning, disinfecting and storing can be critical in long term maintenance and insuring a lifelong ability to wear contact lenses.
Helpful Links and Videos:
- Prosthetic Device Use and Care
- How to wear soft contact lenses
- How to place and remove soft contact lenses
- Wearing and Caring for Rigid Gas Permeable Lenses
- Dryeyeshop.com is the best site for solutions, plungers etc.
- Contact Lens Do’s and Don’ts
Gas Permeable Lens Healthy Habits
Scleral Lens Healthy Habits
Soft Lens Healthy Habits 2012
