Contact Lens Exams in Sweet Home, Oregon
At Advanced Family EyeCare, we strive to meet all of your eye and vision care needs. Our optometrist provides corrective lens evaluations and prescription management in Sweet Home. After a comprehensive eye and vision evaluation, Dr. Michael Stoner will discuss the variety of contact lens options with you to select the type that best fits your vision needs and lifestyle.
If you suffer from dry eye, allergies, or recurring eye infections, speak with our staff to determine whether contact lenses are right for you.
Evaluation
Prior to prescribing contact lenses, Dr. Stoner determines what level of vision correction you require.
Refractive error (nearsightedness, farsightedness, or astigmatism) is evaluated by measuring how the eyes focus when a series of different lenses are placed in front of them.
An optometrist may use either a phoropter or an automated instrument to take these measurements.
Corrective Lenses
After determining the level of refractive error, we can decide whether glasses or contact lenses are best for you. If you have dry eye, allergies, or other similar conditions, glasses may be the most comfortable corrective solution.
Specialized contact lenses are also available for patients with special eye conditions.
Contact lenses are available in soft or rigid gas-permeable forms. How often they need to be changed depends on the type of lens.
Cosmetic Lenses
Advances in contact lens technology have created great options for cosmetic and prosthetic lenses.
Custom contact lenses can be created to camouflage any color variation or irregularity and produce a natural eye color.
Cosmetic lenses are also available to transform your eye color.
Hard-to-Fit Contacts
Contact lenses are not an easy solution for every person suffering from vision problems. Some eye conditions make wearing contacts a tricky proposition. However, it does not rule out wearing contact lenses altogether. It just means patients need to discuss options with their eye care provider and obtain specialized hard-to-fit contacts for their specific vision problems.
Astigmatism
This develops when the front of the eye curves into a bulge or oval shape. It causes blurred vision and can be difficult to correct because regular contacts cannot account for bulging.
Dry Eyes
Excessively dry eyes lead to irritation, burning, redness, and blurred vision. Contact lenses can exacerbate these conditions by making it feel like a foreign object is stuck in your eye.
Giant Papillary Conjunctivitis
This form of conjunctivitis is caused by inflammation on the inner surface of the eyelid. Protein buildup on contact lenses can make this condition worse.
Solutions for Hard-to-Fit Contacts
Wearing contacts is not impossible if you suffer from one of the above conditions. You'll need to meet with an eye care professional and get prescribed contact lenses that are tailored to deal with your specific vision condition.
Gas-permeable lenses are a good solution for patients who suffer from GPC or Keratoconus. A GP lens will prevent protein deposits from accumulating, reducing GPC symptoms. It is also effective in containing corneal bulging and relieving pressure on the tissue for a Keratoconus sufferer.
Toric lenses are useful for correcting astigmatism. Since the lens needs to align with the bulge, it is correcting, and toric lenses must not rotate to fit on the eye. They are typically custom-made to correct specific astigmatism. For that reason, this type of lens takes longer to make and costs more than a traditional contact lens.
Bifocal and multifocal lenses can help remedy presbyopia. Monovision lenses are another option for presbyopia. These types of lenses can have one fitted for distance vision and the other for seeing close objects.
Medicated eye drops can be an effective solution for dealing with dry eyes. They will lubricate the eyes enough to make contact lenses more bearable, although a punctual occlusion also must be done to plug the ducts in some extreme cases. GPC symptoms can also be lessened through medicated eye drops. They flush out protein deposits and reduce inflammation.