Doctor’s blog

The contact lenses are being used for a long time now and the purpose of use of contact lens also slowly changing to various reasons. Initially contact lenses were used for corrective purpose only, i.e. for correction refractive errors of the eye (the commonest eye problems are refractive errors) such as presbyopia, astigmatism, myopia etc. but now a days contact lenses are also used for cosmetic purpose (to change the look or change the color of the eyes) and for therapeutic purpose (to deliver a drug locally to cornea only or for protecting cornea after eye surgery). Although still the main use of contact lens is correction of refractive errors.

As the main purpose of using contact lens is corrective purpose and contact lenses has to be used for long period of time or throughout the day it is wise to use daily disposable contact lenses, as use of washable or reusable contact lens may increase the risk of infection of the eye. The availability of soft daily disposable contact lenses has made the choice easier for the use of daily disposable contact lenses. The only disadvantage of daily disposable contact lens is the cost, which may be higher than reusable contact lenses. But the cost of disposable contact lenses at present is reasonable and most of the people who decide to use contact lens instead of using glasses can afford to use daily disposable contact lenses.

If you are user of contact lens, especially if you are using contact lenses for correction of your refractive errors, you should use disposable contact lenses and rest in peace that the risk of infection due to use of contact lens is negligible with daily disposable contact lenses.

If you are using contact lens for cosmetic purpose also you should go for disposable contact lens. You can use disposable contact lens of different color for changing the color of your eye and your eyes will also be safe from infection.

Contact lens is a type of lens which is placed over the cornea of the eye for correction of refractive errors of the eye, for treatment purpose (e.g. to deliver medication over a period of time and for sustained release of drug; it is than called therapeutic contact lens), or for cosmetic purpose such as changing look and color of the eyes. By far the commonest use of contact lens or simply contacts is for correction of refractive errors of the eyes such as myopia, astigmatism, presbyopia etc.

Contact lens serves the same purpose as served by glasses (spectacles) which is correction of refractive errors of eye (which cause vision problem), but may serve other purpose too such as cosmetic purpose and in treatments, to deliver a particular drug at predetermined rate or dose.

Contact lenses can be of single vision type where only one focal point is present or a contact lens may have two focal points (bifocal contact lenses) and contact lenses can also be multifocal or with more than one focal point.

Presbyopia is a problem of eye where accommodation becomes problematic. Accommodation of eye is ability of focusing of the eye from far to near and from near to far very rapidly e.g. if you are watching a far away object and need to see an object very close to you, if your accommodation capacity of eye is normal you should be able to see it without any problem. But if you are suffering from presbyopia you may need some time to focus on the object close to you. The same is true for focusing on far away object suddenly while seeing a near object.

Presbyopia is generally treated using multifocal contact lenses. As the manufacturing process of multifocal contact lens is complicated the price of multifocal contact lenses may be higher than single focus of bifocal contact lenses. The technique of fitting multifocal lens may also be more complicated than single focus contact lens.