CONTACT LENSES

Special Note from Dr. Gore:
  It is important to remind the reader that contact lenses are medical devices sitting on an extremely delicate and important part of your body. Proper hygiene and keeping to the wear and replacement schedules are essential for the preservation of one's health, comfort and vision and the avoidance of infections and corneal ulcers.

Several of our patients have had contact lens related corneal ulcers over the past year. All of these incidents occurred because the patients were not following advice regarding contact lens hygiene or wear schedule. Fortunately, all of these cases resolved without significant damage. However, corneal ulcers may result in scarring and permanent vision loss requiring corneal transplants. Even a small corneal ulcer will involve significant pain and inconvenience. Please be sure to follow all instructions, including:

 Wash and dry your hands and keep your contact lenses and cases clean.
 Do not wear a lens if your eye is uncomfortable or red.
 Do not allow tap water to come into contact with your lenses or case.
Do not overwear your lenses.
Replace your lenses at the specified interval.
Use the appropriate disinfection procedure (NOT JUST SALINE!).
We strongly advise that you do not sleep in your contact lenses.
If you experience significant pain, remove your contact lenses and contact your eye doctor immediately

-Wishing you all the best,
Andrew Gore, O.D.

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We fit and sell most major brands and designs of soft and rigid gas permeable contact lenses. We like to update patients to the latest, most healthy types of contact lenses, whenever possible. The following have been the most successful lenses we have used in our office recently (however, note there may be lots of other great lenses besides these):

SPHERE AND ASPHERIC SOFT LENSES

One-Day Disposable Lenses

The advantages of daily disposable lenses are: (1) you will always have extra lenses handy (2) you will get to use a brand new, clean contact lens every day (3) you will not have to buy cleaning solutions any more (4) they are great for traveling (5) they are also good for people who are sensitive to various deposits that accrue on their lenses (6) people with allergies often do better with daily disposable lenses and (7) they are more convenient for people who like to wear their lenses part-time and switch to glasses mid-day.

 Acuvue One-Day Moist, Acuvue One-Day Moist for Astigmatism, and Acuvue Tru-Eye - Our patients LOVE these lenses!

 Proclear One-Day  These lenses are made of the same material as the other Proclear lenses. Most people find this material very comfortable as it retains moisture well. The lens uses aspheric optics, thus providing better vision (for many people) than the other brands of daily lenses.

 Ciba Dailies Aqua Comfort Plus - This is the update to Ciba's Focus Daily lens. Ciba has added three lubricants to make the lens retain moisture better, and they have also changed the diameter and curvature a little bit and added a visibility tint. If you wear the older Ciba Focus Daily or if you would like to change to a daily replacement regimen, this is also a great lens to try.

Two-Week Disposable Lens

 Acuvue Oasys  The Oasys material has become extremely popular. It has excellent moisture retention and oxygen permeability. It is one of the latest in the newer silicone class of contact lens materials.

Note on Oxygen Permeability and Contact Lenses: Why is it important that contact lenses transmit oxygen to the cornea? The cornea is one of two lenses in our eyes. It is on the outer surface of the eye, and the contact lens sits upon it. The cornea has a very high need for oxygen and older contact lens materials transmitted only a small amount of oxygen to the cornea, sometimes causing a chronic state of hypoxia (oxygen starvation). Some people have no problems despite wearing older contact lens materials. Other people, however, will have corneal swelling (causing increased myopia), corneal neovascularization (new blood vessel growth on the cornea, which is supposed to be an avascular structure), and increased risk of infection and ulcers. One of the advantages of the silicone contact lenses is that they have very high oxygen transmissibility.

One-Month Disposable Lenses

 Cooper Biofinity - This silicone hydrogel lens has very high oxygen transmission, a very soft material with good moisture retention, rounded edges for improved comfort, and aspheric optics for sharper vision.

 Ciba Air Optix Aqua  This is a newer soft contact lens that many of our patients have found to be very comfortable. It is also in the silicone class, thus allowing excellent oxygen transmission to the cornea.

 Cooper Proclear  This is an older material that many patients find unbeatable in terms of moisture retention.

SOFT TORIC CONTACT LENSES

Many people are still not aware of the existence of soft toric contact lenses, which are designed to correct astigmatism. The comfort and vision with these lenses has improved greatly in the last several years, and we can refit you if a toric lens is indicated to improve your vision.

 Cooper Biofinity Toric. This is an excellent one-month replacement silicone lens. It uses the Biofinity material (see earlier section on this page) in a new toric design. We have had very good success with this lens in terms of comfort, vision and eye health.

 Acuvue Oasys for Astigmatism  This is a two-week replacement silicone lens that many of our patients find to be the most comfortable toric lens they have ever worn. It combines the design of Acuvue's previous toric lens (Acuvue Advance for Astigmatism) with that company's newer Oasys material.

 Ciba Air Optix for Astigmatism - We have tried this one-month replacement silicone lens on many patients and most have liked the lens very much. These lenses also have very high oxygen transmission.

 Cooper Proclear Toric  This is  an extremely comfortable older one-month replacement lens in the Proclear family of lenses. It has excellent moisture retention and is available in a wide range of powers.

SOFT MULTIFOCAL CONTACT LENSES

Multifocal/bifocal contact lenses have also improved greatly in recent years. While these do not work for everyone, many people in our practice love them and see quite well with them.

 Ciba Air Optix Multifocal - We have tried this new lens on several people and the results have been amazing.

 Cooper Biofinity Multifocal - This is a brand new lens. It uses Cooper's newer Biofinity material in a similar design to Cooper's older lens, Proclear Multifocal (see below).

 Cooper Proclear Multifocal - This older monthly replacement lens is a member of the Proclear family, which is known for excellent moisture retention. This lens has an unusual design that often works well for many people. The following explanation sounds very complicated, but one is not aware of this complexity while wearing the lens. In the dominant eye, we use a lens that has distance vision in the center of the lens and near vision in the outer parts of the lens. In the non-dominant eye, we use a lens that has reading vision in the center of the lens and distance vision in the outer parts of the lens. Studies have shown that most people prefer vision with multifocal lenses than with monovision, where each eye has only one task (either near or distance vision).

RIGID GAS PERMEABLE (RGP) CONTACT LENSES

Yes, people still do wear rigid contact lenses! While it may take a little longer to get accustomed to the feel of these lenses, in general they provide more crisp vision than soft contact lenses. There is a large number of materials available. In this office we mostly use the newest, most comfortable RGP materials that we can find.