Special post-surgery contact lenses

Most of the patients who received a laser vision correction surgery such as LASIK or PRK get a perfect vision recovery. However, a small portion of them may suffer from glare, halos and starbursts as well as irregular astigmatism after these surgeries, due to the different ways that the patients’ corneas respond to laser energy. Their daily life quality may further be affected by side effects such as eyestrain and headache. What’s worse, a second surgery for enhancement may be impossible. In this case, GP lenses or hybrid contacts are a good solution for sharper vision.

The reason for using post-surgery GP contact lenses

Your cornea’s microscopic amounts of tissue will be removed by a laser vision correction surgery, in order to reshape the eye’s front surface. This is a process that requires a very high degree of preciseness. The surgeon should be experienced and skilled. Corneal tissues can not be recovered once they are removed. It is widely reported that refractive eye surgeries reach a success rate of 95% in average. This means that corneal irregularities may be caused. While it is still possible for some patients to receive an enhancement surgery, the others are left with a permanent disappointing outcome. This condition is mainly caused by a special eye condition. For those people who are not suitable for an enhancement surgery, GP or hybrid contact lenses are the best solution.

How RGPs compensate for improperly reshaped corneas

By providing a tears space between the cornea and the lens back surface, RGPs use their smooth front surface to replace the irregular cornea surface and thus help patients get rid of visual blurriness and distortions. People who get an unsatisfactory result from LASIK or PRK can thus get a remedy by wearing these lenses. Even if this is not the original intention of receiving an eye surgery, this remedy enabled by RGP lenses is to a large degree a relief. Soft lenses and conventional eyeglasses do not offer any help in changing surgically damaged eye corneas. In particular, soft lenses always conform to the cornea surface.

The fitting of post-surgery GP lenses

Post-surgery GP lens fitting is more challenging and requires more skills and time since the cornea’s surface has been significantly reshaped. These skills are similar with that needed by lens fitting on eyes with keratoconus or eyes after a cornea transplant. Before fitting the lenses, your corneal surface should be measured in a point-to-point way, using corneal topographers or aberrometers. Post-surgery lens fitting always needs special lens designs, e.g. a larger lens diameter, aspheric optics or flatter centered lens. Due to its complexities, this type of fitting always involves a higher fee and a longer adjustment period.

Hybrid and wavefront solutions

Besides GP lenses, hybrid contact lenses and wavefront glasses are also competent in correcting irregular astigmatism and higher-order aberrations after an eye surgery. Hybrid lenses combine a centered gas permeable zone and a soft outer skirt. These lenses provide the aberration-correcting optics of RGPs and the comfort of soft lenses. One of these products is SynerEyes, which is also easier to adapt. One type of new wavefront lenses named iZone High Resolution lenses can correct some degrees of irregular astigmatism and higher order aberrations and offer custom lens designs. They are competitive because of their sharper night vision.