What should I know about contact lenses?

Several people have mixed feelings about corrective contact lenses and may be unclear what exactly they are. A contacs lense is typically made out of a varying special plastics called a polymer. Even though it feels like a soft rubber, modern contact lenses are a type of plastic that is gas-permeable to allow oxygen to reach the cornea.

Speaking of the eye possibly “drying out”. Your eyes will not fall out of your eye sockets. Do not be afraid about the oxygen consumption of the eye! There is still an ongoing study about the amount of oxygen required for the eye to be healthy. All modern contacts provide sufficient oxygen for healthy eyes.

The different types of contacts.

There are still several types of contacts available on the market. While contacts will vary depending on the condition of the eye, the physical make up of the cotact lens remains the same.

• Rigid Lens, Hard Lens, PMMA.
• Gas-permeable lenses or RGP.
• Soft Contact Lens.

Rigid Lenses are the old-school types of plastic lenses that your mother, sister or brother, or you yourself may remember. They are very rare now a days because they are an inferior technology that does not allow oxygen to reach the cornea directly. Instead, your tears carry the oxygen to the corneas. These contacts are not recommended, and should never be recommended by Optometrists unless necessary.

A gas-permeable lens is a type of contact lens that is very similar to the rigid lens in strength and rigidity, but do in fact allow oxygen to reach the eye sufficiently. They are not outdated as rigid lenses are. These types of contacs may be called “RGP” lenses and stand for Rigid Gas Permeable. This type of contactlens is not typically used, but has various benefits which shall be discussed later.

A Soft Contact Lens is the new bread-and-butter of contacs. They account for over 75% of the current contacts in the United States and for very good read. They are different from the other types of contacts in that they are extremely comfortable and allow oxygen to pass through to the cornea due to the fact that they contain water in the make up of the lens.

Since soft contact lenses are so popular and useful, they contain 3 subtypes:

• Extended wear contact lenses contain special material that allow the contact to last for about 2-4 weeks of time.
• Daily disposable lenses will typically be a little pricier, they have several advantages including the fact that disposable contacs will prevent infection at a much higher rate.
• Toric contact lenses are able to correct minor to moderate astigmatism. They are a weighted in a way to allow the lens to conform to the “football” shape of the cornea. These are also available in a rigid form.

As always, your doctor will recommend the necessary contact lenses for you. Be sure to ask many questions!

Thanks for reading. Be sure to visit the rest of Eye Care Universe!

This entry was posted on Friday, August 15th, 2008 at 10:33 pm and is filed under Contacts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.