Contact Lens Options
aHow to buy the right lens?
Expressive eyes are windows to your soul. And are amongst your most potent assets. Perhaps that is why most of us are reluctant to use spectacles. The truth is, glasses tend to disfigure your natural appearance and make you look older, more serious. Even so, many of us end up accepting spectacles as one of life's necessities. This is no longer necessary.
Types of Contact lenses
Contact lenses can be broken down into several main categories based on what they're made of, how often you need to replace them and whether you can sleep in them. Contact lenses are made of many different types of plastic, but they are divided into two main groups: soft or rigid gas permeable.
Soft Contact Lenses
More and more people around the world are discovering the greater personal confidence with soft contact lenses. Unlike spectacles , soft contact lenses do not distort the way your eyes look. Or leave unsightly grooves on your face. Or fog up with sudden temperature changes. They don't slide of your nose and are ideal for sportsSoft contact lenses are made up of special hydrophilic materials. The water content on these lenses may vary from 33% to 79%.
 
How do they work?
 
A contact lens is a hydrophilic (water loving) disc that floats on your cornea. A contact lens is specifically shaped to focus light onto the retina and to fit your eye. But because it covers your cornea it actually corrects your entire field of vision (unlike glasses, which you can see over and under). Contact lenses float on the tears that bathe the eye when you blink.
 
Are you a candidate?
 
Any body having a healthy eye is a candidate for using contact lenses. If you are having a active life style contact lenses give you more freedom and flexibility. If you are having astigmatism (cylindrical power) toric soft lenses are now available to give you good vision. If you are above 40 and you use reading glasses, bifocal contact lenses can be a good option. But your eye care practitioner is the best judge to advise you if contact lenses are suitable for you.
 
The choice of the contact lenses depends on the wearing time of the individual. The work environment, tear chemistry, lenscare regimen, wearing time required by the individual per day. Or if the lenses are to be used on extended wear basis. The prescription of the individual is also an important factor to decide the lens type.
 
Rigid Gaspermeable lenses
 
Rigid gas permeable (RGP) contact lenses, also known as oxygen permeable lenses, are today’s most state-of-the-art hard contact lenses. Twenty years or so ago, hard lenses were made of a material known as PMMA, which is vastly different from the current selection of RGP materials. Many of today’s RGPs are made with silicone, which makes a more flexible plastic than PMMA. Today’s new RGP materials also allow oxygen to pass to your eyes, something that did not happen with PMMA. In fact, RGPs transmit more oxygen to the eye than do most soft contact lenses. The result is that today there is a selection of more comfortable hard contact lenses that provide better eye health.
 
You'll Need to Adapt
 
Still, by virtue of the material, soft lenses are more comfortable to wear. RGPs can take one to two weeks to get used to wearing if you’ve never worn them before. Plus, unlike soft lenses, to achieve maximum comfort with an RGP, you have to wear them every day. You can decide not to wear your soft lenses for a week, and they’ll still be comfortable when you put them on a week later. If you don’t wear your RGPs for a week, you’ll probably need some time to adapt to them again in terms of comfort.
 
The Benefits of RGP's
 
On the other hand, there are some outstanding benefits offered by RGPs over soft lenses. For one, because an RGP is a stiff material, it retains its shape well when you blink, which tends to provide crisper vision than would a soft lens. Also, RGPs are extremely durable. With proper lens care, they may last years, as long as you don’t require a prescription change. They’re also easier to care for than soft lenses, for two reasons: Because they’re rigid, they’re easier to handle. And, because they’re made of materials that don't contain water (as soft contact lenses do), protein and lipids from your tears do not bind to RGPs as readily as they do to soft lenses. For both RGPs and soft lenses these deposits, if not removed, will impede vision and can cause potentially serious eye conditions like a corneal abrasion. Another plus for RGPs is that you may be able to have them polished by a skilled technician, which can extend the life of the lens. This is a procedure that some but not all eyecare professionals offer. Some doctors would argue that it’s simply better and easier to just replace an RGP in poor condition. RGPs are frequently the answer for people who don’t obtain acceptable vision with soft lenses. This not only includes some people with astigmatism and presbyopia, but also people who have a condition called keratoconus, where the cornea is cone-shaped and causes extreme visual distortion. Recent studies also have shown that fitting nearsighted children with RGPs can slow the progression of their nearsightedness. Visit your eyecare practitioner to determine if RGPs make sense for your eyecare needs and to identify the best lens design for you.

 

Your eye care practitioner is the best person to advice