How to Find the RIght Set of Contact Lenses

Contact lenses are a wonderful way to correct your vision and provide a convenient way to see the world without glasses.

They improve your experience for a wide range of activities from SCUBA diving, to surfing, to mountain biking to playing with children who would otherwise pull off your glasses.

That said, contact lenses are medical devices that interact with the surface of the eye and as such, proper maintenance and hygiene are important to keep the eye healthy.

Fitting Your Contacts

In order to safely wear contact lenses, it is important to make sure that the contact lens is not damaging the cornea, the front surface of the eye. We evaluate the fit of the lens, looking at the movement of the lens over the surface of the eye.

Afterwards, we’ll have you remove your contact lenses so that we can evaluate the corneal surface of your eyes for any damage, dryness, inflammation or infections.

We also evaluate the curvature of your corneas to ensure we prescribe the ideal lens shape for you. Since contact lenses bisect the corneal tear layer, they can cause dry eye in some patients, and sometimes a different lens material or fit must be selected —we work with you to ensure an appropriate lens material is selected that will not create excessive dryness.

After ensuring the proper fit and material of your contact lenses, if any of the lens parameters have changed, our doctors will often have you trial the new lenses for 5-10 days to ensure the lens is comfortable and the vision is good. Since everybody has different tear anatomy different lens materials can interact differently with each patient.

While most people can successfully wear contact lenses for many years, some people develop signs of overuse after a few years of wear.

At Midtown Optometry, our doctors check for new blood vessel growth around the cornea, usually a sign the cornea is not receiving enough oxygen.

In these cases, either a more breathable lens will be needed, or it will be advised to reduce wearing time.

In the rare case when contact lenses are overused to the point where they cause an infection, this needs to be addressed promptly using antibiotic eye drops.  This treatment generally has a very good outcome if treated quickly.

We want to make sure that all of our patients have a successful experience with their contact lenses with the best vision, comfort and convenience.

We are passionate about fitting people in lenses as we have seen many lives improved with the aid of this type of vision correction, however each year we do need to check in to make sure that the lenses are working optimally.