The Many Roles of Contact Lenses

About 45 million people in the United States rely on contact lenses for a number of different reasons — from correcting vision to reshaping their corneas.

We understand the power and versatility of contact lenses here at Vision and Ortho-K Center, which is why Dr. Curtis Frank and our team offer several different types of these lenses.

Here, we explore the many roles that contact lenses can play in helping you see more clearly.

Vision correction

If you have a refractory error that’s hampering your ability to see clearly, contact lenses can certainly help — in fact, most people use contact lenses for this purpose.

Whether you have myopia (nearsightedness), hyperopia (farsightedness), presbyopia (age-related close-up vision blurriness), or astigmatism (generally distorted vision), contact lenses can improve your vision.

In fact, contact lenses have come a long way, and we offer multifocal lenses that address two or more issues at once.

Ortho-k contact lenses

If you have myopia or astigmatism, you may want to look into orthokeratology, or ortho-k. These lenses are designed to reshape your cornea so you can see more clearly.

Each night before bed, you put the ortho-k lenses in and they reshape your corneas while you sleep. In the morning, you take them out and enjoy improved vision throughout the day.

Contact lenses for misshapen corneas

Your cornea is the transparent tissue that covers the front of your eye. Some people struggle with contact lenses due to corneal issues, such as a bulging cornea due to keratoconus.

Instead of limiting our solutions to only glasses, we also offer scleral contact lenses, which are larger than regular contact lenses, covering your entire cornea and some of your sclera (the white part of your eye). These lenses are gas-permeable rigid lenses and sit on your eyes in a way that doesn’t irritate your corneas.

Changing the color of your eyes

As we mentioned, contact lenses play a variety of roles, and they can even change the color of your eyes. With colored contact lenses, you can go from brown to blue or blue to green, or whatever color you’d like.

Types of contact lenses

While we’ve covered the roles that contact lenses can play, we also want to point out that they come in a variety of different types. Most people use soft contact lenses for vision correction and changing their eye color. These lenses come in daily disposable versions on up to extended-wear lenses that you can use for up to 30 days.

With the other specialty lenses, there are rigid, gas-permeable lenses that you clean and reuse.

If you’d like to learn more about how contact lenses can improve your eyesight (and change your eye color), contact one of our offices in Boston or Newton Upper Falls, Massachusetts, to schedule an appointment.