Best Contact Lenses

If you’re not sure what some of the most popular Contact Lens words are, look over our short dictionary of eye terms.

Astigmatism

This is where the cornea is irregularly shaped, which prevents the focusing of light rays. This means near and distant objects appear blurred or distorted. A Toric (gas permeable and soft lenses) can correct astigmatism and the best contact lens for the condition

Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD):

An eye condition in later life when the center of the retina is slowly damaged, affecting central vision..

Cornea

Part of the eye’s focusing system that transmits and focuses light into the eye.

Cataracts

Cataracts cause clouding of the eye lens which means light cannot get through to the retina.

Contact Colour Lenses

            Contacts that change or enhance your natural eye colour. Even with the best contact lens, you will still need a prescription.

Disposable Contact Lenses

Contact lenses that are worn and then thrown away after a specific time.

Daily Contact Lens

Contact lenses that you wear during waking hours but remove at the end of each day for cleaning.

Extended Wear Contact Lenses

Contact lenses that are worn all the time for a 1 to 30 days/nights period.

Frequent/Planned Replacement Contact Lenses

These lenses can be worn on a daily basis with cleaning , rinsing and disinfection each time the lens is removed. The lenses are then thrown away after the recommended wearing period. The best contact lens are made of silicon hydrogel, making them easy and comfortable to wear

Gas Permeable (GP) Contact Lenses

A type of contact lens that is made of a breathable, firm, durable, plastic that is custom fitted to the shape of the cornea.

Hard Contact Lenses

The first type of contact lens, which was made of an inflexible plastic material. They provided excellent vision correction, but the hard lenses did not allow the essential oxygen through the lens to reach the cornea.

Hyperopia (or Farsightedness)

Because the eye is too short and flat, the light rays can’t focus and near objects appear blurred 

Macula

The part of the eye responsible for detailed central vision.

Myopia (or Nearsightedness)

With Myopia the eye is too long and steep, which means you can’t see distant objects clearly.

Optic Nerve

The nerve at the back of the eye

Ophthalmologist

A medical doctor (MD) who specializes in diagnosing and treating eye disorders.

Optician

A Specially trained professional (not a medical doctor or optometrist) who can write prescriptions for corrective vision by ophthalmologists and optometrists.

Optometrist

A doctor of optometry (OD) examine eyes for vision and health problems, and prescribe and fit contact lenses.

Presbyopia

An eye condition in later life when the eye become less flexible, causing blurred vision at reading distance. The best contact lens corrects this with bifocal or multifocal contact lenses.

Retina

The light-sensitive layer of tissue that lines the inside of the back of the eye.

Lots of time at the Computer can strain your eyes and cause a condition known as Computer Vision Syndrome, even with the best contact lenses.

Why is this?

Nearly Seventy million people suffer from eye problems due to computer work– and that number is rising each and every year. Why is this?

Primarily its computers straining our eyes, creating a condition known as Computer Vision Syndrome (CVS).

The images you see on your computer are created from thousands of tiny dots, known as pixels; which means there is no proper image for your eye to focus on.

Instead your eyes have to keep refocusing to make the images sharp– and after only two hours you end up with a sort of repetitive stress in your eye.

Using the best contact lenses can help here; and it won’t necessarily cause permanent eye damage, but it can be a considerable irritant.

What should I look out for?

The symptoms are red, dry, irritated eyes; with headaches; back and neck pain; and having trouble focusing, even with the best contact lenses. Lots of people don’t even know they have CVS. But once they are aware of the possible symptoms many people soon realize they may be suffering unnecessarily and take some action to improve their working conditions.

What to do next?

• Keep your computer screen within 20″-24″ of your eyes
• Keep the top of your computer screen slightly below eye level
• Minimize the distance between your computer screen and any documents you need to reference while working
• Adjust lighting to minimize glare on the screen
• Take a break every 15 minutes to focus on a distant object
• Blink frequently

Not everyone can afford or wear daily disposable contacts so for white eye health your lenses should be cleansed, rinsed and disinfected every day using these simple, no hassle rules.

Cleaning: Different cleansers are often used for different brands and types of lenses; so always follow the manufactures recommendations. For soft contact lenses, put the lens in your palm, shake the cleanser and add one or two drops onto the lens. Rub it gently with your middle finger to remove the dirt. After cleaning one side of the lens, turn it over and clean the other side. It only takes 1-2 minutes to clean one lens. 

Rinsing: The idea of rinsing lenses is to wash away the cleanser, which is bad for your eyes. You can use tap water to rinse hard contact lenses or rigid gas permeable lenses, but even the best contact lenses must be rinsed with bottled sterile saline, not home-made saline or tap water. For rinsing, put the cleansed lens on your palm, add some tap water or sterile saline onto the lens and rub it with your middle finger to wash away the cleanser.

Disinfecting: After cleaning, the lenses should be put in a storage solution for disinfection. It is relatively simple to disinfect rigid gas permeable lenses as you only need to place them in the storage solution. However, disinfecting soft contact lenses is a bit more complex and here are the three main methods:

• Heat disinfection: Put the cleansed and rinsed lenses into the lens case; add some sterile saline into the case before heating it to 80 degrees Celsius for 15 minutes. The disinfection procedure is then complete. The lenses can be used after cooling down. The advantages of this method are that it is effective and no eye allergy or discomfort will be caused as only sterile saline is used in the process. The disadvantage is that the heat may cause damage to the all but the best contact lenses and shorten their life span. Usually, the lenses have to be replaced within a year.

• Hydrogen peroxide: Put the cleansed and rinsed lenses into a hydrogen peroxide solution for disinfection. Hydrogen peroxide is detrimental to the eye, so the best contact lenses have to go through a neutralization process before wearing. To neutralize your lenses, take them out of the Peroxide and soak in a neutralizing solution. Or you can put a neutralizing pill or special metal ring into the peroxide solution with the lenses. The whole disinfection and neutralization process can last from ten to sixty minutes, but most eye allergies can be avoided if the hydrogen peroxide is completely neutralized. The disadvantage lies in the complexity of the process, with no shortcuts available. 

• Chemical disinfection: Put the cleansed and rinsed lenses into a disinfection solution. The process generally takes a few hours; however the advantages are its simplicity and the fact that even the best contact lenses can be worn immediately after being taken out of the solution. The downside is the risk of chemical components diffusing into the lenses, which may cause discomfort to some people.

Removing Protein: Apart from daily cleansing, rinsing and disinfecting, soft contact lenses and rigid gas permeable lenses also require protein removal on a weekly basis.

To ensure you enjoy the best white eye health and guaranteed safety for your eyes, it’s important to follow these tips; then you really can’t go wrong buying the best contact lenses on the internet.

 What should I check when buying contact lenses?

• Is your contact lens prescription current? Look out for the expiry date on your from. You should always have a current, valid prescription when you order contact lenses.
• If you have not had a check-up in the last one to two years, you may have problems with your eyes that you are not aware of, or your contact lenses may not correct your vision properly.
• To ensure that your eyes remain healthy you should not order contacts with a prescription that has expired or stock up on lenses right before the prescription is about to expire. It’s safer to be re-checked by your eye care professional to ensure you get the best contact lenses for you current vision.

What does a valid contact lens prescription include?

A proper prescription should contain sufficient information for us to completely and accurately fill the prescription. This includes the following items:

• Your name
• Examination date
• Date you received prescription after a contact lens fitting (issue date) and expiration date of prescription
• Name, address, phone number and fax number of your eye doctor
• Power
• Material and/or manufacturer of the prescribed contact lens
• Base curve or appropriate designation of the prescribed contact lens
• Diameter, when appropriate, of the prescribed contact lens
• Always ask for the brand name of a national manufacturer, so you can compare prices and deals on the internet

What can I do to avoid serious problems when buying my contact lenses?

• Order your contact lenses from a reliable internet supplier you are familiar with. The best contact lenses are often more complex than they appear.
• Request the manufacturer’s written patient information for your contact lenses. It will give you important risk/benefit information as well as instructions for use.
• Beware of attempts to substitute a different brand than you presently have. While this may be acceptable in some situations, there are differences in the water content and shape between different brands. The correct choice of which lens is right for you should be based only on an examination by your eye care professional, not over the phone.
• Carefully check to make sure the company gives you the
  • exact brand
  • lens name
  • power
    • sphere
    • cylinder, if any
    • axis, if any
  • diameter
  • base curve
  • peripheral curves, if any

Don’t accept a brand substitution unless your eye care professional approves it.

It’s import ant that your Prescription Contact Lens details are up to date as you will need them to compare and get the best value on line.

Also you may have noticed it’s different to your glasses, so it’s unique to your eyes and you must never use a friend’s prescription who seems to have similar vision, to buy online. 

First off there are 2 columns headed OS for the Left eye and OD for the Right; and you can also get OU which means the numbers are the same for both eyes. 

The other main headings are:

Power (PWR), which is the strength of contact lens you need, such as – 1:00, -1:75, + 2:00, + 3:00

Base Curve (BC) the inside curve of your contact lens, e.g. 8.6

Diameter (DIA) size of your contact lenses; 13:8, 14:2

Brand: Here you may want to see a major brand such as Acuvue, Johnson & Johnson and Focus. Then you can compare prices for the best deal online.

Add Power (ADD) A measurement of power for multifocal lenses that will help you with close up reading

Cylinder (CYL) is the strength of your astigmatism – 1:00, – 1:25 if you need it.

Axis (AXIS) is the orientation of your astigmatism such as 170 and compensates for the oval shape of your cornea and should improve your blurry vision.

Other stuff to look out for on your Prescription Contact Lens form is the expiry data which is typically 2 years and there will be a note on colours if you want tinted or colour contact lenses.