Contact lenses are a great alternative to wearing glasses. Many people can wear traditional soft lenses, but some are considered hard to fit for contacts. If you are one of these people, you should know a bit about the different types of contact lenses and your options.
Q: What Makes Eyes Hard To Fit?
A: There are a few different conditions that can make it difficult for you to wear traditional contact lenses.
- Abnormal corneal structure: Certain conditions change the shape of your cornea, which makes it impossible for you to wear standard soft contact lenses. Astigmatism and keratoconus are two of these conditions.
- Ocular conditions: Ocular conditions can make it difficult to wear traditional contacts. Conjunctivitis, giant papillary glands, and dry eye are a few examples. These conditions can make traditional contacts very uncomfortable to wear.
- Post-LASIK Surgery: People who have undergone LASIK surgery often suffer from dry eye syndrome after. This makes traditional lenses uncomfortable and blurry.
Q: What Are the Most Common Types of Hard to Fit Contacts?
A: There are a few types of hard to fit contacts that can help you see correctly.
- Gas permeable lenses: These lenses are common for hard to fit eyes. They are often used for patients with keratoconus. A healthy cornea is round, like a ball. Keratoconus causes your cornea to be shaped more like a cone. Gas permeable lenses help hold the cornea in a round shape. These lenses are also helpful with patients who suffer from giant papillary conjunctivitis and patients who have had LASIK surgery.
- Toric lenses: Toric lenses treat astigmatism. This condition causes blurry vision due to an irregular cornea. Toric lenses are the most common treatment for this condition.
- Scleral lenses: Scleral lenses can treat a variety of conditions including keratoconus, dry eye syndrome, and post Lasik patients. Rather than the lens sitting on the cornea, it sits on the white part of the eye. The prescription part of the lens vaults over the cornea helping to improve vision.
- Bifocal and monovision lenses: Bifocal lenses are designed to treat presbyopia. After the age of 40, your close-up vision can worsen. If you need a prescription to see objects in the distance and you develop presbyopia, bifocal lenses contain a prescription for each. If these lenses don't work for you, you can wear a distance lens in one eye and a close-up lens in the other. This is called monovision lenses.
If you have eyes that are hard to fit for contacts, make an appointment with Oxford Optometry. Our eye doctor in Woodstock can prescribe the best hard to fit contacts for your condition. To schedule an appointment, call our optometrist at 519-421-3303 today.