The Benefits of Speciality Contact Lenses

The human eye may seem simple enough — it’s simply small and round. The reality is that eyeballs come in many different shapes and sizes, along with a host of different functional issues. Thankfully, specialty contact lenses can address these variations for many people.

As optometry specialists, Dr. Curtis Frank and our team at Vision and Ortho-K Center understand the incredibly wide range of issues that contact lenses are tasked with fixing. Not only do they help millions of people see more clearly, they can also address extenuating circumstances, from irregularly shaped corneas to problems with dry eyes.

Explore here how speciality contact lenses are answering the call in innovative ways, allowing more people to take advantage of these discreet lenses.

Seeing far and near and everything in between

Let’s say you’re nearsighted and need a pair of lenses to help you see things at a distance. Then, age takes over and you struggle with reading, forcing you to find a solution that addresses this newly developed vision problem.

Glasses addressed this quandary early on with bifocal lenses, and now contact lenses can do the same. Whether you need bifocal or multifocal lenses, the odds are good that we can find the right specialty contact lenses to help you see more clearly at any distance.

Irregularly shaped corneas

If you have astigmatism, which occurs in one in three people in the United States, it means that your cornea (the outer layer of your eye) has an irregular shape. This problem often makes wearing contact lenses more challenging, but thanks to scleral contact lenses, we can remedy the issue and improve your vision. 

Scleral contact lenses are larger in diameter than traditional lenses, as they cover your entire cornea to accommodate different shapes. Scleral lenses are also gas permeable, which helps if you have issues like dry eye. 

Correcting two problems at once

If you have astigmatism, another option in specialty contact lenses are toric lenses. These lenses come in soft and hard form, and they work to correct both your astigmatism and your refractory issue.

Ortho-K lenses

If you have myopia (nearsightedness) or an astigmatism, ortho-K lenses are specialty contact lenses that reshape your corneas overnight to improve your vision during the day. What this means is that you go to sleep with these rigid, gas-permeable lenses in place, and when you take them off in the morning, your vision is clearer.

This approach to myopia has been shown to be especially effective for children. With ortho-K lenses, we can not only correct the existing myopia in your child, but prevent the problem from progressing.

To learn more about our wide range of specialty contact lenses, contact our office in Boston, Massachusetts, to schedule a consultation.