Contact lenses
Experience freedom from glasses
Going to the gym, swimming, team sports, bike riding, important social events, and many other endless occassions you may think of, can all be suitable for wearing contact lenses. Dean Samarkovski Optometrist, located at Indooroopilly, Brisbane has over twenty years experience in fitting contact lenses to patients from the age of 8 and above. We take great care to ensure your successful introduction to contact lenses. We understand that you may be excited or even apprehensive trying contact lenses for the first time, so we have carefully developed procedures over the years that gently ease you into wearing lenses for the very first time. This may involve completing some pre-training at home prior to having contact lenses placed on your eye for the very first time. As Dean has a very patient and caring approach to his patients, he particularly enjoys the satisfaction of fitting contact lenses to those who didn’t believe they could wear them.
Types of contact lenses
Daily disposable lenses are designed to be inserted in the morning, worn for the rest of the day, and then removed and discarded in the evening.
Single-use lenses are best suited to those who live a busy lifestyle and demand minimal maintainence. These lenses are the most comfortable and hygienic.
Two weekly disposable contact lenses are worn for a period of two weeks. The lenses require nightly disinfection before being reworn the following morning.
The lenses are cleaned daily by manually rubbing the surfaces with disinfecting solution, followed by soaking the lens in a multipurpose disinfecting solution overnight. These steps are necessary to maintain hygienic lenses.
Monthly disposable contact lenses are easy to care for with cleaning and disinfecting performed nightly allowing the lens to be re-used for a full month.
Monthly contact lenses are designed to be worn for 30 days, typically removing the lens from the eye overnight so the lens can be disinfected prior to the next days wear. As the lens is kept for a longer period of time, particular care is required to keep the lens clean, and free of excessive debris buildup.
Extended contact lens wear refers to contact lenses that are left continually on the eye overnight for a specified number of nights. This mode of wear provides the convenience of not having to clean and store lenses daily, however it comes with an increased risk for eye infection. Although extended wear contact lenses are designed for 30 nights of continual wear, removing the lenses for disinfection once per week greatly reduces the risk of an eye infection. The other concern with extended wear is the potential for increased dryness of the eyes when wearing the lenses on a continual basis, and this is often managed with regular application of lubricant drops.
RGP contact lenses are often selected for those who demand the sharpest vision, those with irregular corneal shapes and high prescriptions and are great for dry eye and allergy sufferers. RGP lenses may be worn full-time during the day, and just removed for sleeping overnight, although in the case of OrthoK, the lenses are worn overnight instead of daytime. RGP lens come in a number of designs including mini-scleral and scleral lenses which are excellent for keratoconnus, and hybrid designs where the comfort of the rigid lens is improved by adding a soft ‘skirt’ around the outer edge.
Rigid gas permable (RGP) lenses are designed to be worn up to 2 years before needing replacement. These lenses are very healthy and provide high levels of oxygen to the cornea. RGP lenses are relatively simple to look after, requiring a multipurpose solution and protein removing enzyme treatment periodically.
The optics behind contact lens designs
Toric lenses for astigmatism
Toric contact lenses are specifically designed to correct astigmatism present in the eye and provide sharp vision. Contact lenses that correct for astigmatism are designed to focus light in two different orientations so they are designed to maintain their orientation whilst on the eye. This is usually done by thickening or ‘weighting’ strategic portions of the lens to minimise lens rotation even whilst the eye is moving and blinking. Toric contact lenses are available in daily and monthly soft disposable lenses and rigid gas permeable (RGP) lenses.
Multifocal lenses
Multifocal contact lenses are designed to correct both near and far vision simultaneously, much like progressive lenses in glasses do. Contact lenses that work as multifocals are designed to focus near vision within a specific ‘ring’ of the contact lens, whilst distance vision is focussed in a different ‘ring’ of the lens. These ‘rings’ of clear vision are blended to provide a natural and smooth transition between distance and near targets. Multifocal contact lenses are available in daily and monthly soft disposable lenses, and also rigid gas permeable (RGP) lenses.
Multifocal toric lenses
Multifocal toric contact lens designs combine the optics of a multifocal lens, providing distance and near vision, with the optics of a toric lens which corrects the astigmatism.
Ortho-K lenses
Orthokeratology contact lenses are worn overnight and designed to gently reshape the cornea to correct for myopia, astigmatism, and hyperopia. These lenses are removed from the eye in the morning and provide clear vision for the rest of the day without the need for additional contact lenses or glasses. These highly specialised lenses are precision made with an optical design carefully matched to the exact contours of your cornea.
Extended depth of focus lenses
Single vision lenses have a single focal point which limits the ability to see both distance and near objects simultaneously when you are greater than 45 years of age. New lens designs extend the depth of focus, enabling nearly 2x the range of clear vision compared to single focus lenses. This provides seamless vision at a greater range of distances from near to far.