Have you ever thought about trying contact lenses or wondered if it was even possible? Nearly every person is a candidate to benefit from contact lens wear in some way. In this post we will discuss some of vision correcting options of contact lenses.
Spherical Lenses: These lenses are used to correct near sightedness and farsightedness. In a nearsighted eye the image is focused in front of the retina causing blur. A contact lens, much the same way as glasses, will shift this image back onto the retina bringing things into focus and allowing for clear vision. In a farsighted eye the image is focused behind the retina and the contact will shift the image forward.
Toric Lenses: Toric lenses correct eyes for astigmatism. What is astigmatism is a common question asked of eye doctors? The easiest way to explain it is that a spherical eye is shaped like a basketball while an astigmatic eye is shaped like a football. This actually causes two separate images to be produced, and results in blurry vision. A toric lens needs to have two separate powers precisely aligned to correct vision. In the past this made contact lens difficult for people with astigmatism. If the lens rotated on the eye significantly vision would be blurry and highly variable. Today’s modern toric lenses have greatly reduced this problem. Eye doctors are now able to fit most people with astigmatism, even high amounts, into contacts.
Multifocal Lenses: The biggest advance in the area of contact lenses the last few years has been in multifocal lenses. These lenses correct for the condition presbyopia. This is the naturally occurring process starting around age 40 where the eye is no longer able to focus on objects at near. The advanced optics of a multifocal lens allow for each eye to have clear distance and near vision at the same time. This allows eye doctors to turn back the clock for their patients. No longer will they have to reach for the readers to wear over their contact lenses. At OPMT (both in Nashville–Belle Meade and Hendersonville locations) we are proud to offer the most advanced multifocal lenses available for our patients.
This is only the beginning of what contact lenses are able to accomplish for our patients. In future posts we will talk about some of the more advanced uses of contact lenses and situations in which they are medically necessary. Stay tuned!
