Contact Lenses
At Lilac Family Eye Care, we prescribe all manners of contacts, whether you are in daily soft contacts, RGP’s (hard contacts) or are doing myopia control with Ortho-K. See more information on myopia control.
Our contact lens evaluations are broken into three tiers, depending on the complexity of the fit. Evaluation and fitting fees cover all follow-ups needed until the contact lens prescription is finalized. For new contact lens wearers, we will take the time to teach you how to take your contacts out and put them in before you leave.
Soft contact lenses
Soft contact lenses come in two modalities: daily contacts (ones that are thrown away every night) and monthly contacts (ones that are taken out of the eyes every night and thrown away every month). Doctor Darnell typically recommends daily contacts, especially for younger wearers, because the contact lenses are thinner, which makes them more breathable and thus healthier for the eyes.
Soft contact lenses can be fit three ways. For patients who do not need reading glasses, Doctor Darnell will typically fit both eyes with a distance prescription, just like we would glasses. This is our most common fit.
For patients who are presbyopes, aka those who need reading glasses, we have a couple of different options. We can do a “monovision” fit, where one eye is fit with a distance-corrected contact, and the other eye is corrected for reading, so that the patient can see both distance and near at the same time. Research shows that 70 to 80% of patients can adapt to this modality, if they prefer. Monovision does limit the eye’s ability to work together, and as such, some patients can find it slightly disorienting. Other patients absolutely love it. (As a side note, monovision can be done in LASIK patients, as well, though we will trial it in contacts before surgery to make sure that the patient is able to adapt.) Until this past year, if a patient had astigmatism and wanted to be able to read without using readers, monovision was our only option.
For patients who don’t like monovision or would prefer to have both eyes working together, we also offer multifocal contacts, which are like bifocals or progressives, but in a contact lens. Multifocal contact lenses allow the eyes to work together and view both distance and near, but their complicated optics typically result in a small amount of distortion or blur in the distance. Previously, multifocal contacts were only available for patients who did not need astigmatism correction in their contacts. However, since 2019, we do now have a multifocal contact lens available that DOES correct for astigmatism, and Doctor Darnell has been absolutely thrilled with the results!
Hard contact lenses
At Lilac Family Eye Care, we love RGP’s (or hard contact lenses). Optics through a well-fit RGP are usually better than through glasses, but for new wearers, it can be very challenging to get used to the fit of a hard lens in the eye. Due to this adaptation period, hard lenses are typically prescribed only in cases where a soft contact lens will not suffice, or if the patient requests hard contacts. Certain corneal conditions, such as severe dry eye, keratoconus, or other conditions that can cause irregular corneas cannot be fit comfortably with good vision with soft contact lenses.
Hard contacts can be fit with both eyes as distance, in monovision, or in multifocal forms, just as soft contacts above. A well-cared-for RGP will last at least a year, if not more, assuming the prescription does not change. RGP’s need to be cared for using special contact lens solution.
If you have any questions about proper contact lens care, or you need to update your contact lens prescription, please call our office to schedule an appointment!