Which contact lenses are right for you? Disposable lenses, hard lenses, or soft lenses. See which lenses work for your lifestyle.

Contact lenses are an alternative optical correction to glasses or surgery.  They offer greater freedom for those with active lifestyles.  And let's face it.  Some people just don't like wearing glasses.   Whereas eyeglass lenses sit out in front of the eye, contact lenses rest on the eye, providing more natural vision.  We now have contact lenses which can be worn continuously without removal for up to a month.  This makes contact lenses a more viable alternative to refractive surgery.  And contact lenses can easily be changed to accomodate changes to the eye.  This is not easily achieved with surgery.  Whether you can wear contacts successfully depends on the follow factors: 

1. Need.  The more you need your glasses, the more likely you are to enjoy contact lenses.  

2. Age.  Contact lens wear requires a muture sense of responsibility.  Contact lenses which are not worn responsibly or are not properly maintained can pose a threat to the health of the eye.

3. The nature and degree of refractive error.  Will the contacts be correcting nearsightedness, farsightedness, presbyopia, or a combination of the above?  This question must be answered prior to selecting a suitable type of contact lens.  This also determines the complexity of the fitting procedure and how much it will cost.

4. The overall health of the eye.  Successful contact lens wear requires healthy eyes.  It is the contact lens specialist who, through periodic evaluation of the eyes, insures that contact lenses are being worn safely.  A contact rests on a thin layer of tissue called the cornea.  Like any other part of the body, the cornea requires oxygen and nutrients to remain healthy.  But the cornea does not have blood vessels supplying oxygen.  Instead, the cornea absorbs oxygen directly from the air.  All contact lenses impair oxygen flow to the cornea to some degree. The goal is to select a contact lens and fit it in such a way that the cut off of oxygen is minimized to an acceptable level.  Todays modern contact lenses are safe and effective when worn responsibly.  What follows is an explanation of the types of contact lenses in comman use today.

For the most part, contact lenses are powered to put the eye in focus for infinity (twenty feet and beyond).  The eye itself takes care of closer viewing distances through the act of focusing.  The focusing mechanism of the eye is located just behind the iris.  It consists of a flexible lens which is controlled by muscle tissue attached around the periphery or circumference of the lens.  As we age, the lens looses its flexibility, making it increasingly difficult for the muscles to change its shape. This progressive condition is called presbyopia and it's affect is to make focusing on near objects or fine print increasingly difficult.  We first notice this to be a problem around the age of forty. This is when presbyopia has progressed to a point where it is effecting our normal reading distance.  For most people this is around 16 inches.  The solution is to have lenses with more than one focal point.  As one might imagine, it is technologically challenging to get more than one power into an area the size of a pupil.  Nevertheless,  there are many new bifocal contact lenses on the market.  The success rate for these new products remains spotty.  The most successful method for presbyopic contact lens wearer's to achieve good vision far and near is the "monovision" technique.  With this method, the patients dominant eye is corrected for infinity and the non-dominant eye is corrected for near.  And with monovision, the doctor can choose any firm, soft, extended wear, or toric lens that is available.