Have Contact Lenses Improved Lately?

June 26, 2009 6:26 PM

Have there been any significant advances in the world of contact lenses in the last 5-7 years?

So, I've been wearing glasses since I was six or so. I can't honestly remember exactly what's wrong with my eyes (silly, I know, but I just go in, do the eye exam, they write some numbers down and I get new glasses). I know for sure that I'm nearsighted, but my glasses also contain prisms, so I know I have some other condition as well.

It's been 5-7 years since I asked if contacts were an option for me, and I realized the other day that I really need to figure that out next time I go for an appointment. When I asked several years ago, I was told that it wasn't at all an option for me. I'm not really sure why.

So I plan to ask that next time I go, but in the meantime, does anyone here know enough about optometry to tell me if it's possible that contact lens technology has advanced sufficiently in the last several years that it might be a possibility? You aren't my eye doctor, and even if you are an eye doctor, I certainly haven't given you enough information about my specific condition for you to tell me for sure. I'm just looking for some general information about the issue.

So, does contact lens technology advance? Or has it been pretty much the same for many years?

posted by DMan to Health & Fitness (15 answers total)

I'm not sure about "prisms," but it's possible that you have an astigmatism, which my understanding is used to be uncorrectable with contacts, but no longer is. The short answer is that it's worth asking.
posted by Tomorrowful at 6:31 PM on June 26, 2009

I have my share of astigmatism that resulted in me only being able to wear 'hard' contacts until (I think) around 2000-2001 when 'torics' came about. I don't know a lot about the technology that's out there, but I that since then I've been able to wear contact lenses that brought me even closer to 20/20 than my first pair of contacts. Not knowing a great deal about your particular eyes, I would still say there is a chance that you can now where contacts even if you couldn't before.
posted by nameless.k at 6:36 PM on June 26, 2009

It sounds as if you have astigmatism. Soft contact lenses (toric lenses) can correct mild astigmatism, but people with more severe astigmatism have to stick to glasses, rigid gas permeable contact lenses, which are more difficult to get used to than soft lenses, or some hybrid of soft and rigid lenses.

The only person who can answer this question is someone who knows your prescription. Talk to your optometrist.
posted by maudlin at 6:36 PM on June 26, 2009

Astigmatic lenses need to be oriented at a particular rotation. The (not that) newer lenses are weighted so that they self-orient. Ask your optician to show you how much wiggle room these things have, usually 10 or 20 degrees. Rotate your glasses by this amount and see if you are willing to accept that level of distortion.
posted by StickyCarpet at 6:43 PM on June 26, 2009 [1 favorite]

Remembering back to when my father had prism lenses, they had to be placed into the frame a very precise way, or he wouldn't be able to see clearly. So I could see this causing an issue, as contact lenses don't stay in the same position.

From the allaboutvision.com site,

"Some patients who require prism can wear contact lenses, and some can't. It depends on the kind and the amount of the prism.

In fact, some kinds of prism are corrected better by contact lenses than by glasses!

See your eyecare practitioner for more details. "

So that may have been the reason they weren't able to prescribe them. Only your doctor will be able to tell you.
posted by Evil Chicken of Doom at 6:46 PM on June 26, 2009

I am insanely nearsighted and have a crazy astigmatism, and I wear rigid gas permeable lenses. It really does depend upon your eye doctor and the lab that makes the lenses. If you were in the DFW area, I'd recommend my optometrist (I see an ophthalmologist for eye health and an optometrist for refraction), who specializes in hard to fit contacts. He also refracted the best glasses prescription I have ever had.

Gas permeable lenses do take much longer to get used to, but the incidence of damaging corneal infections is much lower with them than with soft contacts. Plus, they are much more difficult to damage.
posted by girlbowler at 6:56 PM on June 26, 2009

Contact lenses have advanced significantly in the last two to three years particularly for astigmatism. My toric lens doesn't move around at all these days and the vision I get is excellent. Not just the lenses, but new storage solutions so people with issues like dry eye (common with torics apparently) can wear their lenses happily for extended periods.

But you don't even know your prescription so we can't really tell you if the changes have been in areas that are relevant to you. Fortunately your optometrist can, so definitely ask. Also get them to write your prescription down for you, only takes a minute and can be helpful for when you research stuff in the future.
posted by shelleycat at 6:57 PM on June 26, 2009

Apparently the astigmatism contacts don't pan out for everyone. I'm nearsighted, with a little bot of astigmatism, which I've never had corrected by contacts (which I wear everyday). Last checkup, they tried to get the weighted lenses, but they wouldn't orient right. So they just said, "nope, not for you."

Also, by "prisms," Dman might mean "bifocals". They have contact lens versions of those, too, but I don't know anything about them.

IANAED. Obviously....
posted by kestrel251 at 6:58 PM on June 26, 2009

I have astigmatism and have worn contact lenses for oh, 8 or so years? Talk to your eye doctor!

Actually that's what I really wanted to say in my answer: if you have an optometrist you don't feel comfortable talking to and asking questions of, or he simply makes you feel like you're bothering him when you do, switch optometrists. I love my optometrist because he's put up with my curiosity about my eyes and eye-related matters since I was a little kid. He seems to really enjoy answering my questions and it makes me feel like I know what's going on with my eyes. If you simply aren't the kind of person who asks questions of health care providers, that's a different story, but I feel like everyone should see doctors they feel comfortable with and who is willing to explain themselves within reason.
posted by MadamM at 7:16 PM on June 26, 2009

Response by poster: Great answers so far, you have given me hope. Good news too, I actually found my prescription from when I had them write it down. Here it is, in case anyone knows such things:

Sphere Distance:
R: -3.75
L: -3.75
Sphere Add:
R: +100 (could be 1.00? can't tell)
L: +100 (could be 1.00? can't tell)

Prism:
R: 1/2 (This is written as a 1 directly over a 2, no line between)
L: 1/2 (This is written as a 1 with a 2 below and to the right of it, no line between)

Base:
R: B up, B OT
L: B dn, B OT

Pupillary Distance (This probably only matters for glasses)
29/29



Well, that's all very confusing to me, but maybe someone will know. And I will definitely be visiting the eye doctor soon. I hate my glasses!
posted by DMan at 7:54 PM on June 26, 2009

Whoa. Sorry, but it looks as if you don't have astigmatism, or else you have an optometrist who uses terms differently from the North American standard. You are fairly nearsighted with some presbyopia, which seems a bit odd in somebody who's 20, as the ability to read print usually doesn't start to weaken until about 40.

A prescription for astigmatism will have values for cylindrical correction (for the refractive error due to astigmatism) and axis (the angle of this distortion). Base and prism are not used to describe astigmatism. The base and prism values are explained in this Wikipedia guide to prescriptions:

Prism and Base are usually left empty, as they are not seen in most prescriptions. Prism refers to a displacement of the image through the lens, and is used to treat muscular imbalance or other conditions (see vergence dysfunction) that cause errors in eye orientation. Prism correction is measured in "prism diopters", and Base refers to the direction of displacement.

I suspect you may be stuck in glasses, but IANAO. But please talk to one or more optometrists and prove my pessimism wrong!
posted by maudlin at 8:27 PM on June 26, 2009

I need a fairly strong prism to correct for strabismus, in my case that's one eye that crosses in a lot. My spectacles prescription has prism "base out." Your prism bases are right-up and left-down, which seems to imply your misalignment is vertical rather than horizontal. I'm fairly nearsighted, but my cross-eyed double vision doesn't kick in until I'm looking about six feet away. Since I work on a computer all day, I have contact lenses with no prism that are fine for all my office work but are not my full vision correction. When I want to see farther and avoid the double vision, I have glasses with prism that I wear over my contact lenses. I use these mostly for driving or going to the movies, where no one sees me in my glasses anyway. If you don't need to see far, far away all the time, this may work for you. Or you could get contact lenses (no prism) with your full correction, and spectacles with only the prism for driving, etc.
posted by Joleta at 9:19 PM on June 26, 2009

Go to a real eye doctor or opetometrist - not Lenscrafters or whatever is in the mall and ask about these.
posted by Zambrano at 7:37 AM on June 27, 2009

Zambrano, why? His prescription suggest mild presbyopia, at worst, and those multifocals won't do a thing for his displacement problems.
posted by maudlin at 3:23 PM on June 27, 2009

Response by poster: Update: Turns out, I can wear contacts! The main reason I haven't been able to is because my glasses have prisms in them to correct my eyes (without them, my eyes tend to look in different places). But when I don't have my glasses on, I don't have double vision or anything, so the eye doctor said I could give it a shot.

Surprisingly, it works great! The only problem I have is actually putting them in and taking them out...I'm not able to do it yet because I'm not used to touching my eyeballs...weird feeling. I'll get there, though.

But anyway, just thought some of you might be interested to hear the resolution to my quest for better vision.
posted by DMan at 9:15 PM on January 28, 2010