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Lens Types & History of Contact Lenses
At one time the choice was very simple - hard or soft. Now there are almost as many choices as there are eye conditions... the secret is finding an optician who is not only familiar with all the different types of lenses but also knows how to fit them all.
Soft lenses are relatively easy to fit - they "drape" over the surface of the eye so can cope with a range of corneal shapes. Most opticians who don't specialise in Contact Lenses will only offer them as they haven't had the necessary training to fit ALL the other types of lenses available today. The disadvantage of soft lenses is that the level of vision correction obtained may not be as accurate as with other lenses and in addition, unless treated correctly they can be prone to build up of proteins, lipids and calcium. The design and materials used for flexible oxygen permeable lenses have advanced significantly in the last couple of years so that now as well as providing superior vision, these rigid lenses are as comfortable as soft lenses and more suited to dry eyes. So if you've rejected the idea of these lenses (also known as RGPs or Rigid Gas Permeable) now is the time to reconsider and discuss your options with one of our skilled practitioners.
The ideal lens for you depends on your particular vision problem, your lifestyle and your preferences. This is why you need to work with a specialist, to find a lens that gives you great vision, great comfort and lets you live the life you want to lead; whether that involves water sports or sitting for hours in front of a computer, throwing your lenses away every day or leaving them in for a month at a time. We fit every lens with any clinical merit and will custom design a lens for you if nothing else will work. With over 90 years experience and training between our 3 specialists you can be sure that we will find the very best lens for you!
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Scleral (Haptic) Lenses which fit under the eyelids and cover the whole eye. These are mainly used for Keratoconus and other abnormal eye conditions. Originally made of non permeable perspex we now use oxygen permeable materials. The skills to fit such lenses are not taught any longer so, apart from in one or two specialist practices like ours, they are mainly only fitted in Hospital Eye Departments.
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Flexible Oxygen Permeable Lenses in dozens of different advanced materials some being United States, Food & Drug Administration approved for up to 30-day sleep in! ‘Branded Rigid Lenses' are available from several multi-national manufacturers but because these don't allow us the accuracy of fitting we seek, We RARELY use these as every eye is different which means that an off-the-peg lens rarely meets our standards for accuracy and can't provide the best vision. Instead EVERY rigid lens we prescribe is custom designed and your order goes through a specialist laboratory with your name on the job tray and is lovingly made by one skilled technician! Having fitted rigid lenses since 1966 Geoff knows this is the only way to achieve the high success rates he expects!
For years rigid lenses have been made to cover only part of the cornea (the front lens of the eye) but with recent technological innovations in CNC computer controlled lathes and the advent of highly oxygen permeable materials we now regularly design rigid lenses so that they overlap the cornea and rest on the sclera - the white of the eye which is very insensitive. Sadly we are increasingly having to use these larger lenses to correct corneal damage caused by laser surgery.
Like soft lenses, custom designed RGPs such as SoClear can provide immediate comfort, AND they also provide superior visual acuity, can correct astigmatism and can be made as Varifocals. SoClear lenses are particularly useful for patients experiencing visual problems after Laser surgery which has gone wrong.
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Soft Lenses. We fit lenses from all the major multi-national manufacturers and use small specialist laboratories to individually make bespoke lenses that can correct all the errors OFF THE PEG ONE FIT LENSES DON'T - that's why other less experienced Opticians send us their more complicated patients!
Less than 1% of Opticians offer a truely SPECIALIST Contact Lens Service in any way similar to ours.In High Street shops specs are much more profitable so many Opticians don't fit Contacts. When they are fitted the vast majority are SOFT, 'one fit off the peg' branded lenses which simply CANNOT correct complex vision errors.
Despite their proven merits, Rigid Gas Permeable lenses are now hardly ever fitted to new patients in High Street shops - probably because they need more time and Opticians no longer receive any significant training to fit them!
IN OUR SPECIALIST PRACTICE WE ARE NOW FITTING ADVANCED DESIGNS OF RIGID & COMBI LENSES WHICH GIVE BETTER RESULTS THAN SOFT. IN THE STATES A RECENT SURVEY SHOWED 40% OF NEW FITS WERE RIGID LENSES.
YES, WE DO FIT BRANDED SOFT LENSES WHEN SUITABLE - at the last count over 175 types from over a dozen different manufacturers. When none of these will work the difference between us and NON SPECIALISTS is that:
BETWEEN OUR 3 CONTACT LENS SPECIALISTS WE HAVE OVER 90 YEARS EXPERIENCE OF DEDICATED CONTACT LENS FITTING.
WE CUSTOM DESIGN HAND MADE BESPOKE LENSES SO CAN FIT VIRTUALLY ANYONE - HOWEVER COMPLEX - ARRANGE AN APPOINTMENT TODAY AND LET US PROVE THAT YOU COULD REALLY SAY GOOD-BYE TO GLASSES!
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Hybrid Soft/Rigid lenses from Synergeyes superbly comfortable these specialist lenses have a rigid oxygen permeable centre for excellent vision with a soft peripheral skirt for extreme comfort. Synergeyes lenses are invaluable for patitnets with more sensitive eyeys and after unsuccessful Laser Surgery.
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Piggy Back Lenses which we use for some of the most complex vision errors. Usually we use a soft lens to float on the cornea for comfort and then a rigid lens is fitted on top of the soft lens to provide quality vision. Frequently the chosen soft lens can be worn to sleep in for up to a month so only the rigid lens needs removing daily.
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Coloured Lenses You're blue - but you'd like to be green.....or brown or even violet! We can do that! We have contacts that let you change the colour of your eyes or for something more subtle we have lenses that will accentuate the colour that you were born with.
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Crazy Lenses For Halloween......or when you're just feeling wild!
A Brief History of Contact Lenses
Contacts are NOT new! Leonardo Da Vinci drew sketches of Contact Lenses in 1508, but it wasn't until over 300 years later in the 1880s that the first Contact Lenses were fitted. (For more on the history of lenses see Wikipedia) . These SCLERAL or HAPTIC Lenses were blown in glass over a mould of the eye and fitted over the whole eye. Progress was relatively slow up until the advent of plastics in the 1940's when Scleral Lenses became a regular way of correcting both abnormal eye conditions such as Keratoconus and also all normal errors of vision.
Haptic lens from the 1940s - Photo courtesy of Phisick.com
In the 1950s Micro Corneal lenses came along - originally known simply as Contact Lenses. With the advent of soft lenses they acquired the name Hard or Rigid Gas Permeable Lenses in order to differentiate the two. Because they require expert fitting skills and most Optometrists today in the UK are only given basic training in fitting RGP lenses, they are now only fitted by a few specialist Contact Lens Practitioners even though thanks to recent advances, they offer instant comfort as good as that offered by soft lenses, better vision and are more hygienic. In the United States where Optometrists are trained more extensively in these 40% of new lens wearers are fitted with RGP lenses compared to only 3% in the UK. Although we can't change the World we prefer to describe these as ‘flexible oxygen permeable lenses' because, with the latest manufacturing technology and advanced materials as we've already said they can be superbly comfortable.
Soft or HYDROPHILIC (meaning ‘water loving') lenses appeared in the late 1960's. Soft because of their water content and transparent, the material was originally developed in Czechoslovakia but lack of prior experience meant that they were unable to produce wearable Contact Lenses. As a result they sold the rights to the US National Patents Department who licensed Bausch & Lomb and HYDRON to develop Soft Lenses using this material known as Hydrogel.
Soft Lenses received US Food & Drugs Administration in 1971 and rapidly became very popular. Their advantages over Hard Perspex lenses (rigid oxygen permeable had not yet been developed) were their immediate comfort, no build up in wearing times and ease of fitting.
Massive technological improvements have been made in soft lenses since the 70's. In the late 1960's a colleague of Geoff's developed the first soft lens suitable for sleeping in - Permalens. In 1974 Geoff was asked to join 9 other top specialists to evaluate this lens for F.D.A approval which was granted in 1976.
The original Hydrogel lenses were joined in the mid 1990's by biocompatible plastics with some resistance to protein build up as well as having a lower drying rate making them better for patients with dryer eyes and low tear flow.
In 1999 the very first soft hydrogel lenses with silicone added, ‘sil-gels' became available thereby dramatically increasing oxygen permeability. Both CIBA VISION and BAUSCH & LOMB launched these lenses which are so permeable that they received U.S. Food & Drugs Administration for up to 30 days SLEEP IN!
Because of our reputation with our peers and the experience we've accrued in designing lenses hardly a month goes by without a manufacturer asking us to trial or introduce a new product. We happily take those that have clinical merit and add them to our armoury of lens designs so expanding the vast range of lenses that we can draw from in order to find the perfect one for each of our patients.
