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Our colleague, Francis N. Campagna, Jr., O.D. shares his thoughts on a great new contact lens technology that he is currently fitting in our Deptford office……
The Greatest Thing That Has Ever Happened to a Person in Human History’
This was the phrase which a patient recently used to describe her sheer joy with a recent set of contact lenses I recently fit her with. Now this is not just a typical patient with ‘normal’ eyes, and a common set of contact lenses! You’ve probably figured that out already.
The aforementioned patient has a condition called keratoconus, which has gradually distorted, and scarred her corneas, the normally-clear, front surface of the eye. She has had this condition for decades. Like many with advanced keratoconus, glasses don’t work. She can not see at all with any pair of eyeglasses. They just don’t work any more. So it’s contacts, or legal blindness for this patient.
This patient had worn gas-permeable contact lenses for about 25 years, with increasing discomfort, and decreasing tolerance. She had gotten to the point where she could not where the lenses more than 3 or 4 hours, due to discomfort.
This past summer we tried a new type of larger gas-permeable contact lens. They are referred to as ‘corneo-scleral’ contact lenses. These lenses are great for many with keratoconus, but also can be used for those with corneal scars, bad astigmatism, when soft lenses don’t work. They can really be considered for many wearers that could never wear contacts, due to poor vision, or comfort problems with older gas-permeable designs.
For this patient, these lenses have been little short of a miracle. She can function near-normally. She has started to drive again. Indeed, at least for her, this may be the greatest thing that ever happened to a person in human history.
SoClear® corneal scleral contact lenses are designed and patented by Dakota Sciences. For more information visit:
http://www.soclearlens.com/consumers.php
Related Articles
- Keratoconus – All Information (umm.edu)
- Astigmatism – All Information (umm.edu)
