Soft contact lenses: Types, Usage And Care Tips

What Are Soft Contact Lenses?

Soft contact lenses are made from a thin and porous plastic containing hydrogels.  Not like the hard contacts, hydrogels in soft contacts are supple. This enables superior breathability, making these the foremost popular lens type and they’re comfortable to wear without having to “break them in”.

Soft lenses are handily the foremost popular sort of contact. Most of those are silicone hydrogel lenses, which transmit more oxygen to the surface of the attention than conventional hydrogel lenses. Soft contact lenses are made from a thin and porous plastic containing hydrogels.  Not like the hard contacts, hydrogels in soft contacts are supple. This enables superior breathability and comfortability.

Types of Soft Contact Lenses

There are various types of soft contact lenses such as:

Rigid Gas Permeable Lenses

These contacts, also called GP contact lenses, are made from rigid plastics and sometimes provide sharper, more stable vision than soft lenses. GP contact lenses provide more oxygen to the surface of the attention than many soft lenses, decreasing the danger of certain contact lens-related eye problems. GP lenses generally have a smaller diameter than soft lenses, making them fit closer to your eye.

However, their rigid nature and thicker profile can take time to get used to, and a few people cannot wear the lenses comfortably.

Hybrid Lenses

A hybrid contact lens combines the above two contact lens types together. Hybrid contacts have a center made from a rigid gas permeable plastic, surrounded by a soft lens material. This hybrid design combines the sharp optics of a GP contact with the comfort of sentimental lenses. However, hybrid lenses are costlier than either soft or GP lenses, and fitting is often tougher and time-consuming. For these reasons, but 5 percent of contact wearers within the U.S. wear hybrid lenses. Colored contacts are an excellent option for those looking to juice up their look or maybe just experiment with their natural features. It’s singular and safe thanks to fiddle together with your look.

These contact lenses are designed to mix the simplest elements of both worlds. The hard lens provides better optics while the soft lens provides all-day comfort. Hybrid contact lenses use a rigid material at the center, surrounded by a hoop of hydrogel material. Some people need the features offered by hybrid contact lenses.

Extended Wear Contact Lenses

Extended wear contact lenses are available for overnight or continuous wear ranging from one to six nights or up to 30 days. Extended wear contact lenses are usually soft contact lenses. They are made of flexible plastics that allow oxygen to pass through to the cornea. There are also very few rigid gas permeable lenses that are designed and approved for overnight wear. 

Disposable (Replacement Schedule) Contact Lenses

The majority of soft contact lens wearers have prescribed some type of frequent replacement schedule. “Disposable,” as defined by the FDA, means used once and discarded. With a true daily wear disposable schedule, a brand new pair of lenses is used each day.

Types: –

• Visibility tints – This is often usually a light-weight blue or green tint that is added to a lens and it’s designed to assist you to see the lens better when inserting and removing contacts, or just in case you drop one. Since it’s a really light tint, a colored lens with a visibility tint doesn’t affect your eye color.

• Enhancement tints – This is often a solid, but translucent (see-through) tint that’s a touch darker than a visibility tint. An enhancement tint lens is different because it doesn’t change your eye color. Because the name implies, its purpose is to reinforce the prevailing color of your eyes. These are usually recommended for contact wearers who have light-colored eyes and need to accentuate their eye color.

• Color tints – These lenses are deeper, opaque tints that alter your eye color completely. Color tints typically contain patterns of solid colors. If you’ve got dark eyes, this is often the sort of lens that will be necessary so as to vary your eye color. Color contacts are available in a good sort of colors, including hazel, green, blue, purple, and grey.

Who Should Wear Soft Contact Lenses?

Dry eyes: you’ll be an honest candidate for soft lenses made with higher water content hydrogels. These hydrogels help by keeping your eyes wet with natural moisture. You’ll remain comfortable in your contact lenses for much longer.

Astigmatism: Recent technology has enabled the event of multifocal lenses that correct astigmatism, but also adapt to physical changes to your eyes and this is great news because, before soft multifocal lenses, people with astigmatism or presbyopia had to modify to rigid GP lenses or hand over-wearing contact lenses altogether.

Keratoconus: A thinning of the cornea occurs with Keratoconus. It’s difficult for people with irregular corneas to wear standard contact lenses. Therefore, they are recommended to use scleral contact lenses. In these contact lenses, the scleral lens is larger in diameter than a GP lens. It also comes in various sizes to accommodate different cornea shapes and measurements.

Caring Tips for Your Soft contact lenses

• You’ve chosen the proper pair of eye contact lenses, now you will be required to take care of them.
• Caring for your contact lenses includes practicing good hygiene, cleaning and storing your lenses, and knowing when it is time to eliminate them. This is often the simplest trick to avoid discomfort, poor vision, irritations, and infections.

• Cleanliness and good hygiene will ensure your “Soft contact lenses” don’t offer you any problems.
• It should go without saying, but always remember to scrub your hands before touching your lenses.
• Contact lenses sit directly on the surface of your eye, so germs could easily get trapped between your eye and therefore the lens.
• Your contact lenses are required to be cleaned daily with a sterile solution.
• An equivalent goes for the tip of the bottle of contact solution and therefore the contact case.

Be sure to stay these points in mind when deciding if contact lenses are right for you. What’s most vital is that you’re totally comfortable with your decision to wear contact lenses. Trying anything for the first time is often scary, so it’s okay if you are feeling nervous! But once you visit your ophthalmologist, you ask as many questions as you would like, so that your fear goes away.

Simple hygiene helps in avoiding serious eye infections. Around four out of every 10,000 contact wearers suffer from bacterial eye infections on a yearly basis. While Acanthamoeba infections are rare, bacterial eye infections are far more common, estimated to affect around four per 10,000 contact wearers every year. About 13% of individuals whose eyes or contact lenses are infected with bacterial infection lose substantial vision. However, bacterial infections are often severe and fast-acting. The most known bacterium liable for contact lens-related infections is pseudomonas, another water-loving microorganism. It can sometimes burrow through the attention surface in hours.

Prevention Tips

These evidence-based tips for healthy contact wear will assist you to avoid infections:

• You should wash and dry your hands before handling lenses or before touching your eyes.
• Rub, rinse and store contact lenses in a fresh disinfecting solution. Topping up the old solution with new is an infection risk
• Clean your storage case with the disinfecting solution.
• Don’t use water with lenses or cases
• Avoid wearing your lenses overnight.

Diagnosis

If your symptoms worsen, visit an optometrist.

Pseudomonas is immune to the strongest over-the-counter drops, chloramphenicol. But most optometrists can treat eye infections by prescribing eye drops and may refer you to an ophthalmologist (a specialist eye doctor) if needed.

To know more about it, you can easily visit our website Eyemantra. If you are looking for other services like cataract surgery, Retina surgery or Ocuploplasty you can simply ring at +91-9711115191. Even you can simply mail us on  [email protected].

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