Soft Lenses for Keratoconus and Irregular Cornea

RGPs

If you wear contact lenses for keratoconus, or an irregular cornea, use RGPs as they are generally the first lens tried when you attend a hospital contact lens clinic. RGPs can give good vision and that is, after all, their function – to give good vision.

However, most (not all) keratoconics tend have more sensitive eyes than “normal” people and very often the lenses are uncomfortable. In some cases they are downright painful.

As the reason you are wearing them is that you cannot get good vision in ordinary contacts or glasses, you don’t really have the option of leaving them out. Juggling contact lens wear to balance work, home and social life can be a bit of a nightmare.

Coping mechanisms range from wearing the right lens one day, the left lens the next; wearing just for work and leaving out at weekends; wearing just one lens altogether if the other lens is too painful and finally, simply overwearing the lenses and working through the pain barrier if you have to see for 18 hours or more that day.

Keratoconics are unique in that they can see normally with lenses in and are functionally blind without. If comfort issues mean they can only wear lenses 8 hours a day – then they are forced to choose which 8 hours they see. If you don’t have keratoconus, try to imagine your vision switching off just as you arrive home from work at night…that’s what many keratoconics face every day of their lives.

It doesn’t have to be that way….

Softs

Soft lenses for keratoconus have been around for 13 years or more. They have not been widely used – partly perhaps because people do not understand how they can possibly work. Visit the “How contacts work” page for more information on how both rigid and soft lenses work.

Other concerns have been that soft lenses are thicker than normal ones – thus there was the worry that not enough oxygen could get through the lens to keep the cornea healthy.

With the development of new soft lens materials and new lathing technology,  there are many soft lens types now available than even a few years ago. More practitioners are fitting them very successfully and they have the advantage that comfort and wearing times are excellent.

New designs mean that even advanced cases of keratoconus can wear lenses with good vision – and maybe even better vision than you were getting in your RGP lenses.

I fit only soft lenses for keratoconus and irregular cornea. I have the facility to customise lenses for the individual eye and my patients find:

• improved wearing times up to 18 hours or more
• reduced photophobia
• greatly improved comfort levels

If you want more information, fill out the contact form