What Are the Different Types of Contact Lenses?
Soft Contact Lenses
Most soft contact lenses are made out of silicone-hydrogel, a material that allows oxygen to pass through and bring nutrients to your cornea. Soft contacts are often considered comfortable, cost-effective, and easy to use.
Our team can help you choose between several kinds of soft contacts (such as toric, spheric, and multifocal). We can also help you decide how often you want to change your contacts and provide lenses that last for that amount of time. Our practice carries daily, bi-weekly, and monthly soft contact lenses suitable for all kinds of lifestyles.
Rigid Gas-Permeable Lenses
These durable lenses are useful for correcting astigmatism because they provide a smooth refractive surface over an irregular cornea. Rigid gas-permeable (or RGP) lenses are made of solid silicone compounds that let oxygen travel through easily and tend to last much longer than other varieties.
However, RGP lenses are more likely to dislodge than other lens types and can take longer to adjust to. Your eye doctor will be able to tell you whether RGP lenses are likely to benefit you.
Specialty Contact Lenses
You may need contact lenses with specific properties for various conditions. Once we have performed your contact lens eye exam, we can recommend specialty lenses to suit your needs. Such lenses include:
- Aspheric: the shape of these lenses helps correct atypically curved corneas, which cause astigmatism.
- Toric: the horizontal and vertical axes of toric lenses each have a different prescription. Toric lenses are also weighted at the bottom so that they don’t slide when the wearer blinks, so they’re useful for correcting moderate to severe astigmatism.
- Multifocal: different portions of each multifocal lens have different prescriptions, which helps the wearer view objects clearly at varying distances. They can be useful for people with presbyopia.
