Contact Lenses

Sooner or later, every person who wears glasses will find an occasion where there eyewear gets in the way. For some, it is sports, whilst others prefer the non-spectacled face when they go out. The answer, of course, is contact lenses! Contact lenses have advanced tremendously in the past 20 years, and these days, almost every type of correction can be catered for. Whether you are shortsighted, longsighted, or have astigmatism, contact lenses can help you.

Soft Contact Lenses

Soft contact lenses are hydrophilic or "water loving". Their water content ranges from 38% to 75% for different applications. They provide increasing oxygen transmission but less durability as the water content raises.

Soft contact lenses offer the following advantages:

• Comfortable
  
• Quick adaptation to wearing
  
• Flexible wearing times
  
• Correction of most vision problems
  
• Simple and easy care & hygiene
  
• Ability to change or enhance eye color
  
• Soft contact lenses are available as conventional lenses which usually last for 12 to 18 months using a care system which usually consists of separate solutions for cleaning, rinsing, disinfection & storage. They are now also available as disposable soft lenses, daily-disposable lenses and as tinted soft lenses.

* Part or all of the cost of contact lenses is covered by your Health Fund if you have private health insurance.

Hard Contact Lenses

Rigid, or hard, contact lenses are less comfortable initially but do offer specific advantages for some eye and vision problems:

Able to correct some problems which cannot be treated with soft lenses
More durable and longer life
Able to correct some cases of astigmatism without requiring more expensive lens designs
Dr. Koos will advise you on which contact lens is best for you!

Disposable Contact Lenses

Disposable contact lenses are a sub-group within soft contact lenses. They provide improved eye health by the planned replacement of lenses before problems with lens aging and deposits can develop. These lenses have been made possible by improved methods of production which have lowered the cost to a point where disposability is affordable.

Different types of disposable contact lenses are replaced on a schedule of 1 week, 2 weeks, 1 month or 3 months.

Since the lenses do not have to last so long, the care and cleaning procedures are much simpler and are usually based upon a convenient 1-bottle system for cleaning, disinfection & storage.

They are now also available in tintedoptions and as a daily-disposable.

Daily-Disposable Contact Lenses

Disposable contact lenses have now progressed to the ultimate in disposability: Daily-disposables. These are worn once and discarded. There are no solutions required since the lenses never need to be stored.

Daily disposable contact lenses are proving especially popular with people who want to wear them as an occasional option for social wear or sport.

Colored & Tinted Contact Lenses

Soft contact lenses are also available in tints and colors. These fall in to 3 main categories:

Visibility Tints - to make it easier to see and handle the contact lenses. These are usually a pale blue and included in the lenses at no extra charge
Transparancy Tints - which are used to work with and enhance the patient's own natural eye colour. For example: to make a hazel eye greener
Cosmetic Tints - which are used to cover and completely change the patients own eye colour. For example: to make brown eyes blue.

Extended Wear Contact Lenses

New safer lenses which can be worn for up to 30 days without lens removal or cleaning. patients can sleep in these lenses and awake to clear vision 24 hours a day. These new lenses are made possible by new lens materials and improved knowledge about the eye's physiological response during sleep.

Bifocal Contact Lenses

It has always been difficult to produce a contact lens which can provide distance and near prescriptions and move to the correct area reliably for different tasks. Now new optic designs based upon aspheric geometries are making this possible.

Less Expensive Daily-Disposables

Made possible by improvements to the mass production techniques.

New and exciting developments in contact-lens technology are rapidly solving more and more vision problems. Even bifocal contact-lens are now available. If your vision cannot yet be corrected by lens or laser technology, tomorrow’s realization of today’s ideas may offer hope.

Contact lenses are now available in a rainbow of colors, some lenses now offer UV-ray protection and contain materials that combat "dry eye" problems. Contacts also come in disposable, long-term use (12 to 18 months) and rigid gas-permeable formats (the latter allows gases to flow although the lens, rather than being trapped next to the eye).

Technology Breakthrough

Ciba Vision contact lens company has released a new extended wear lens to a limited number of practices in the US. We have been chosen as one of these practices and are delighted to be fitting this state of the art contact lens.

The development of a safe and comfortable extended wear contact lens has been the aim of contact lens scientists for many years, and it looks like this goal has been reached at last.

The big breakthrough has been the development of a contact lens material that allows healthy quantities of oxygen to reach the eye, even during sleep. Focus Night & Day provides up to 6 times the oxygen transmission of other contact lenses!

For suitable patients the benefits of extended wear have arrived. Contact lens wear will be much more convenient with less need to carry cases and solutions everywhere, no need to plan for lens removal late at night and of course great savings on cleaning and disinfecting solutions.

If you are interested please contact us on our practice phone number to discuss this exciting breakthrough and your suitability.