Contact Lenses Options

Contact Lens Options

Many changes have recently taken place in the contact lens industry. The biggest advance is the introduction of silicone plastics. Even though silicone materials have been around for some time, they didn’t work well for soft contact lenses because the stiffness of the plastic and the surface dryness lead to discomfort.

The biggest advantage of silicone materials is that they allow a great deal of oxygen to flow through them. Just recently, lens manufacturers have developed ways to make them less stiff and more wettable, which makes them more comfortable.

Soft (Extended Wear) Contacts

Soft contact lenses are made from a flexible water-absorbing plastic polymer that allows oxygen to pass through to nourish your eyes as you wear the lenses. Your extended (overnight) wear contacts contain approximately 60% water. Overnight wear contact lenses are safe and very comfortable to wear; however, to maintain this safety and comfort, you must wear, care for and replace your lenses as recommended.

If you wear your contact lenses overnight, you must comply with an extra level of caution. Under no circumstance should extended wear lenses be worn for periods longer than one week without removal, disinfection and cleaning. Pay close attention to your symptoms and do not continue to wear your lenses if your eyes are excessively uncomfortable or red. Because overnight wear lenses are in contact with your eye for longer periods than lenses worn for daily use only, they require more frequent replacement. Periodic progress visits are required to help ensure your safety, comfort and visual function.

Disposable Soft Contact Lenses

The soft disposable contact lens system is designed to be a healthier, a more convenient and generally more economical approach to contact lens wear. The system is simple; when your scheduled wear period is over, you simply throw the used lenses away and replace them with fresh, clean, sterile lenses the next day.

Traditional contact lenses build up lens deposits (residue) and deliver less oxygen to the eye over a period of time. Traditional lenses eventually become less comfortable and provide less visual function as they age. Your short-term disposable contact lenses will help promote better eye health, consistent eye comfort and optimum visual efficiency.

The convenience you will enjoy with disposable contact lenses is unparalleled. With disposable use, the traditional daily and weekly cleaning demands of standard soft contact lenses are unnecessary. As a consumer you will benefit economically because your money may now be spent on fresh healthy disposable lenses instead of costly chemical care products, lens insurance plans and damaged or lost lenses. Some disposable lenses may be worn as overnight extended wear lenses or flexible (mixed) daily-extended wear lenses, while others are designed strictly for daily wear use. The life expectancy of a disposable contact lens is dependent on the user’s wearing schedule. Disposable contacts; the new/healthier way to wear contacts.

One-Day (Daily Replacement) Disposable Contact Lenses

In recent years, disposable contact lenses have revolutionized the way people wear contact lenses. The soft disposable contact lens system is designed to be a healthier and a more convenient approach to contact lens wear. Conventional daily wear disposable contact lenses are worn during an average lens life-span of fourteen days before replacement with a new pair. This system has proved to be a good one. However, any lens worn multiple times has an opportunity to build up troublesome deposits during this period and as a result, cause unwanted problems.

Since the advent of the first contact lenses over forty years ago, science has been in constant pursuit to design and develop a perfect contact lens. To be perfect, a lens must provide excellent optics and unparalleled comfort. It must require no care of any kind. A lens must be totally free of troublesome deposits and, most importantly, it must provide the healthiest environment possible for contact lens wear. Today, we are happy to introduce to our patients a contact lens that provides all of the characteristics of such a dream, the one day disposable.

One-day disposables are just this. They are worn for one day and discarded. No cleaning and no disinfection is necessary. In other words, there are no solutions to buy. They are excellent for people who wish to wear contacts everyday or for those who wish to wear contacts occasionally. In summary, they are the healthiest, the most comfortable and the most convenient contact lenses available. For the approximate daily cost of a cup of coffee and a bran muffin, you can wear the perfect lenses. One Day disposables; a dream realized!

Day-Night Silicone Contact Lenses

Day-Night lenses have revolutionized the way people wear contact lenses. Leading up to this time, disposable lenses became the system of choice. With conventional disposables, patients sleeping with lenses discard lenses weekly, while patients on daily wear schedules generally discarded lenses in two weeks. Day and night lenses are made of a special silicone lens material that provides six times more oxygen to the eye than ordinary soft lenses. In addition, silicone lenses have been surface treated to wet with the your natural tears. As a result, day and night lenses have a maximum allowable life-span of thirty days of continuous night and day wear.

It must be understood that a patient’s individual needs, environment and ocular tolerances vary greatly. Some patients may be best suited for daily wear and others may require a discard schedule sooner than thirty days. During the initial trial fitting period, a patient’s appropriate and safe wearing schedule will be determined.

Planned Replacement Soft Contacts

Programmed replacement of soft contact lenses provides patients with more comfort and a preventive approach to healthier soft contact lens wear. Recent studies demonstrate that regardless of how well a soft contact lens is cleaned, deposits (unhealthy contaminants) continue to build up on the surface and within the pores of a contact lens. This build-up of unwanted debris steadily decreases lens comfort, decreases visual ability and most importantly, compromises optimum eye health.

By replacing your soft contact lenses on a prescribed planned schedule, lenses contaminated with deposits are discarded before complications can arise, leading to more comfortable, trouble-free and healthier contact lens wear. Patients who consider all of the associated costs of “two-lens” soft contact lens wear will be pleased to find that a planned replacement approach is economical and affordable. Programmed replacement; the smarter way to wear contact lenses.

Astigmatic (Toric) Contact Lenses

Special toric contact lenses are designed for the correction of astigmatism. They differ significantly from regular contact lenses because they are specially designed to fit over your eye’s natural egg-shape curvature. This custom-designed lens precisely corrects the complex refractive requirements of your astigmatic eye. A conventional contact lens has one power requirement, which is exactly the same in all directions. A toric lens, as in your spectacle eyewear, has two different power requirements. Each power must align in a specific direction. When you place a toric lens on your eye, it is designed to rotate with your initial blinks and quickly stabilize, placing your needed astigmatic visual correction at the proper angle or position. Toric lenses are one of the most technologically advanced contact lenses used in eye care today.

Bi-Focal Contact Lenses

Bifocal contact lenses are the most technologically advanced contact lenses in eye care today. As in your spectacle eyewear, your dual power contact lenses will provide you with both distance and close-range correction.

Your success with bifocal contact lenses is highly dependent on your motivation and willingness to follow all of our recommendations and care procedures carefully. The adaption to bifocal contact lenses may require a longer time period than conventional contacts. During this adaption period, we advise caution while driving a car or performing other critical visual functions.

Gas Pereable Contact Lenses

Gas permeable contact lenses are manufactured from a special plastic material, which combines the visual correction and durability of conventional hard contact lenses with the eye tolerance qualities of soft contact lenses.

Gas permeable contacts allow the delicate tissues of your eye to breathe more normally by permitting oxygen to pass through the lens, which naturally nourishes your eyes. To maintain optimum safety and comfort, you must wear and care for them as instructed. Your success is highly dependent on your motivation and willingness to carefully follow all of our recommended wear and care procedures.