Contact lenses can be challenging to wear for people with irregular cornea shape, severe dryness, and some eye diseases. Many people turn to scleral lenses as a solution, as they are bigger than regular contact lenses, resting on the whites of your eyes and allowing them to be used for extended periods. They’re gas-permeable, allowing oxygen to reach your cornea, often making them better for eye health.
What Are Scleral Lenses Used For?
Scleral lenses are contact lenses that rest on the white part of the eye, known as the sclera, rather than the cornea. They are designed to vault over the cornea, creating a tear-filled reservoir that provides comfort and clarity. They come in hard and soft versions, but overall, they are firmer than regular contact lenses, holding their shape.
Severe Dry Eye Relief
Scleral lenses can be a game-changer for individuals suffering from severe dry eyes. The lens’s tear-filled reservoir provides constant moisture to the eye, alleviating dryness and discomfort.
Handling Irregular Corneas
Scleral lenses can significantly benefit people with irregular corneas due to surgeries, injuries, or conditions like pellucid marginal degeneration. Their unique design ensures a more comfortable fit and better vision correction than regular lenses.
Treating Keratoconus
One of the primary uses of scleral lenses is to treat keratoconus, a condition where the cornea becomes thin and cone-shaped. Traditional lenses might not provide the stability needed, but scleral lenses offer a stable fit and improved vision.
What is the Difference Between Scleral Lenses & Regular Lenses?
While the most significant difference between the two is how much bigger scleral lenses are, they also differ in
- Fit, with scleral lenses frequently staying in place better, providing a more stable vision correction experience.
- Comfort & moisture since scleral lenses offer continuous hydration with their tear-filled reservoir, making them more comfortable for extended wear.
- Vision clarity, since the vaulting design of scleral lenses minimizes irregularities in the cornea, leading to clearer vision
The Benefits of Scleral Lenses
The differences between regular and scleral lenses make it clear how the latter can be incredibly beneficial:
- Increased hydration helps reduce friction between the lens and the eye’s surface, providing more long-term comfort.
- The clarity provided by scleral lenses, especially for those with corneal irregularities, is often superior to that provided by regular lenses or glasses.
- Due to their unique design, scleral lenses can be worn for extended periods without discomfort, making them ideal for all-day vision correction.
However, their increased cost, higher maintenance, and learning curve frequently offset all these positive benefits. Your optometrist can work with you to help offset some of these drawbacks if you’re interested in trying scleral lenses.
Who Can Wear Scleral Lenses?
Many people can! Scleral lenses correct vision issues such as nearsightedness and farsightedness, as well as more serious eye conditions like keratoconus, severe dry eye, or post-surgical corneas.
Even if you don’t have an underlying eye condition, scleral lenses might be suitable if you find regular lenses uncomfortable because of the added moisture and stability. Or if you lead an active lifestyle and find regular lenses slipping or shifting, scleral lenses offer a secure fit that stays in place during various activities, from sports to outdoor adventures.
How Eaglet Eye Technology Is Improving Scleral Lens Fittings
Contact lens fittings can be tricky, even for regular contact lenses. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution, but trying multiple lenses to find the right one is tiring. Eaglet Eye technology features topography profiling of the cornea, limbus, and sclera parts of the eye – making it a unique profiler technology that allows for comprehensive, quick, and comfortable specialty contact lens fittings, particularly for scleral lenses.
Eaglet Eye Technology’s advanced mapping techniques create a highly detailed image of your eye’s surface, customized to fit your unique contours. This personalized approach allows for a more accurate fitting of scleral lenses, enhancing comfort and effectiveness.
Continuous Improvement
The technology constantly evolves, incorporating feedback and data to refine fittings and improve outcomes. This dedication to innovation means that scleral lenses fitted with Eaglet Eye Technology are among the best available.
Daniel Island Eye Care is proud to be one of just 200 optometry practices in the USA to adopt Eaglet Eye as part of our fitting process. This makes us the only provider in Charleston and South Carolina with this technology available.
Getting Started With Scleral Lenses
If you’re interested in getting fitted for scleral lenses to improve your vision and comfort while wearing contacts, the first step is to consult with an eye care professional who specializes in scleral lenses. They will assess your eye condition to determine if scleral lenses suit you.
The fitting process involves measuring your eye’s surface and customizing the lenses to ensure a perfect fit. Eaglet Eye technology simplifies this process while offering tailored solutions for addressing “special” eye and vision concerns.
Many providers offer a trial period to ensure you are satisfied with the lenses. Use this time to adjust to the lenses and provide feedback for any necessary adjustments. Daniel Island Eye Care is Charleston’s leader in Contact Lens Technology. We value fostering relationships that help us better serve you and your ocular health. Contact us today to see how we can help you with scleral lenses.
