What You Need to Know About Soft Contact Lenses

What You Need to Know About Soft Contact Lenses

Soft contact lenses are unquestionably the most commonly prescribed contact lens available. Made of soft, flexible plastic, it is estimated that about 87% of contact lens wearers in the U.S. wear soft lenses.

Brief History

In 1971, Bausch & Lomb introduced the first commercially available soft contact lens. For years, this conventional soft daily wear lens was the only type of soft contact lens available. This lens ideally was meant to last between 6 and 12 months and required daily cleaning and weekly enzymatic treatment.

In 1981 the FDA approved the first contact lenses approved for extended or overnight wear.

It wasn�t until 1991 that the first frequent-replacement contact lenses were sold. Frequent-replacement contacts are typically replaced every 1 to 3 months. The next year, 1992, disposable contacts (disposed every 2 weeks or less) were introduced.

In less than a decade, frequent-replacement and disposable lenses became the lenses of choice for the vast majority of eye care providers. Today approximately 75% of soft contact lens patients are wearing some sort of frequent-replacement or disposable lens. Frequent-replacement and disposable contacts are available as both daily and extended wear.

Soft Contact Lens Options

As implied, daily wear contacts are removed and cleaned daily, while extended wear lenses can typically be worn continuously for up to 7 days (or more as CibaVision�s Focus� Night & Day� contacts have been approved for up to 30 days continuous wear).

Disposable contacts are, as the name implies, disposed on a regular period, while the non-disposable contacts are cleaned and disinfected before reinserting the contacts.

Patients who choose extended wear should be aware of the added risk of eye infections and complications that come with sleeping in contacts. I typically discourage extended wear, but will fit contacts as extended wear only after the patient understands the added risk and agrees to be seen for more frequent follow-ups. I also will use a silicone hydrogel lens material for these patients.

Types of Soft Contact Lenses Available

Soft contact lenses are available for a variety of visual corrections.

For patients with significant astigmatism, I will often use a soft toric contact lens. Toric contacts have improved greatly over the last few years. Indeed, many patients who have never been able to wear contacts due to their astigmatic prescription are now able to successfully wear contact lenses.

Soft bifocal contacts are a relatively recent option for patients requiring a reading prescription or bifocal. Along these same lines, monovision continues to be a good option for these same patients. Monovision correction does not use a bifocal contact, but rather uses one contact for the distance vision (usually the dominant eye) and one contact for the near vision.

Soft contact lenses come as either clear or with a visibility (handling) tint. The visibility generally has no effect on eye color, but is there to help you see the lens while you�re handling it. These lenses are not the same as cosmetic soft contacts.

Cosmetic soft contacts have been popular sellers since their introduction. Now patients with or without a prescription can change the color of their eyes with colored or tinted contacts.

CibaVision�s Wild Eyes� contact lenses and CooperVision�s Crazy Lenses are novelty lenses that are fun to fit around Halloween.

Concluding Thoughts

Part of the reason for the success of soft contact lenses is the comfort these lenses offer over rigid gas permeable (RGP) contacts. As a result, they have a much shorter adaptation period. However, in some cases with soft contacts, vision may not be as sharp as with RGP contacts.

When prescribing a soft contact, my first lens of choice is CibaVision�s O2Optix�. This lens can be worn for up to one week extended wear or two weeks daily wear. For patients who may not want a disposable lens (this is very rare), I will recommend CibaVision�s Cibasoft� Visitint� standard daily wear.

For patients who experience drying with their contacts, I will often recommend contacts with newer, moisture-retaining materials. Such contact lenses include Proclear� Compatibles by CooperVision and Acuvue� Advance� with Hydraclear by Vistakon (Johnson & Johnson). Indeed, Vistakon has recently launched the Acuvue� Oasys� with Hydraclear, which is primarily targeted for patients who experience contact lens dryness.

Regardless of your own situation, chances are good that you will end up wearing a soft lens if you decide to try contacts Be sure to discuss with your eye care provider all the options you may have, given your prescription, age, needs, and expectations.

About The Author

Dr. Dan Irwin is a practicing optometrist in southeastern Michigan with over 16 years experience fitting contact lenses. For more insightful information on contact lens related topics such as discount contact lenses and buying contact lenses online, please go to http://www.Contact-Lens-Online-Guide.com.
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A pair of special effect contacts is a must for any decent Halloween costume. But there are so many on offer - which lenses are truly spectacular and which are a waste of money? Find out what costume contact lenses are available and how to select the brand that is best for you.

There are two major types of Halloween special effect contact lenses - round (traditional shape for contact lenses that only cover the colored area of your eye) and scleral costume lenses (covers the entire visible portion of your eye, leaving no white visible). There are also semi-scleral lenses - they are larger than the ordinary ones, but some white is still visible at the corners of your eyes.

If you are not very experienced with color contact lenses, it is best to go with ordinary (round) lenses. Scleral Halloween contacts create a great effect, but they are more difficult to insert and remove, and sometimes not very comfortable to wear. Also, scleral lenses are very expensive - usually upwards from $200 per lens. Semi-scleral lenses, on the other hand, can be a good compromise, because they are reasonably easy to put in and take out and they don't cost that much.

All special effect lenses are completely opaque. Unlike some color contact lenses, costume lenses are equally suitable for light eyes and dark eyes - they completely mask your natural color anyway. The center of the lens is usually clear, so you can see. If you need vision correction, you should be pleased to know that some Halloween special effect contact lenses, like Wild Eyes and Crazy Lenses, come with corrective powers. If your vision is perfect, you can just get plano (zero powers) lenses.

What Halloween special effect lenses are on offer?

The variety of special effects lenses designs is amazing. You can find anything you want, from classic hot red or cat eyes to frost, Dune or Alien designs. The most popular and exciting looking lenses are Banshee, Cat Eyes (which you can get in yellow, red or white) Vader, Wolf Eyes, Black-outs and White-outs. You can also get lenses with the logo of your favorite sports team or symbolic prints like smiley face or stars and stripes.

See designs of Halloween contact lenses

And if you have your own design in mind you can order custom-made contact lenses. There are many companies online that employ contact lens artists to create individually painted lenses. Of course, this type would cost a lot and you will have to place your order in advance.

Halloween contacts collections and manufacturers

Two collections dominate the special effect Halloween contacts market - Crazy Lenses, produced by Cooper Vision, and Wild Eyes, produced by Ciba Vision.

Crazy Lenses offers white-out lenses, black, red and white spiral, wolf eyes, fire and bloodshot. Crazy Lenses come as monthly disposable contacts as well as traditional (annual replacement lenses). Actually, if you won't wear your Crazy Lenses every day and care for them properly, annual lenses can last up to 18 months. If you are looking for the cheapest option for this Halloween - monthly disposable Crazy Lenses is usually the cheapest high quality contact lens you can get. Crazy Lenses are available with or without prescription.

Wild Eyes are annual replacement special effect lenses. You can get Cat Eye, Hypnotica, Black-out and White-out, Icefire, Zoomin, Zebra, Jaguar and Wildfire. Wild Eyes colors are bright and vivid and the lenses are very comfortable. You can get Wild Eyes with or without corrective powers.

9mmSFX lenses - the company that created special effect lenses for movies such as Hellraiser, Blair Witch Project 2, The Adventures of Pluto Nash and many other famous movies. They offer hundreds of designs, all of their lenses are hand-painted, and they create unbelievable effects. The only draw-back is that 9mmSFX lenses are not mass produced - so they cost a lot.

Compare Halloween costume contacts by different brands and have great scary fun!
About the Author

Tanya Turner is a colored contact lens expert and a publisher of Contact Lenses Consumer Guide which provides you with consumer information about color contact lenses Contact lenses for Halloween, and costume contact lenses reviews and photos