Advanced Specialty Contact Lenses: Transforming Vision Care Beyond Traditional Options

When standard contact lenses fail to provide the clarity, comfort, or specialized care your eyes need, specialty contact lenses offer innovative solutions that can dramatically improve your quality of life. There are a number of specialty contact lenses that are used for specific conditions where a higher level of customization and personalization is required for improved vision and/or symptom control. For residents of Long Island seeking advanced vision care, understanding these cutting-edge options available through your local optometrist port jefferson can open doors to clearer, more comfortable vision.

What Makes Specialty Contact Lenses Different?

While standard contact lenses are customized for individual eyes, specialty contact lenses have unique design features that set them apart. Specialty contact lenses are different from traditional contact lenses because they are designed and customized to meet the specific needs of your eyes. These advanced lenses are particularly beneficial for patients with complex prescriptions, irregular corneas, or specific eye conditions that cannot be adequately addressed with conventional soft lenses.

Types of Advanced Specialty Contact Lenses

Scleral Contact Lenses

Unlike most contact lenses, scleral contact lenses do not touch the cornea. These hard lenses are larger in diameter — about the size of a dime — and rest on the white of the eye (the sclera). The space between the scleral lens and the cornea is filled with saline, which helps the eye stay lubricated and comfortable. They are an effective treatment for several eye conditions, such as dry eye, keratoconus or corneal ectasia.

Hybrid Contact Lenses

Hybrid contact lenses have a hard, gas-permeable center and soft edges. People with vision problems such as irregular astigmatism or minor corneal irregularities may achieve sufficient vision correction with hybrid contacts, which are more comfortable than traditional gas permeable contacts. These lenses combine the visual clarity of rigid gas permeable lenses with the comfort of soft contact materials.

Orthokeratology (Ortho-K) Lenses

Orthokeratology, otherwise known as ortho-k, is a process of fitting special gas-permeable contact lenses to reshape the cornea. Patients wear the special contact lenses at night, while they sleep, and can then enjoy clear vision during the day, without the need for eyeglasses or contact lenses. Orthokeratology (ortho-k) lenses can help correct vision while also helping slow myopia from progressing to higher levels. Ortho-k lenses can be an effective option for nearsighted children and teens.

Custom Soft Contact Lenses

Custom soft contact lenses are lenses designed for your eye in any prescription, with varying sizes and curvatures. You may need custom soft lenses if your prescription isn’t standard or if your eye shape or eye condition doesn’t allow standard lenses to fit your eye properly. Good candidates for custom soft lenses include patients with high prescriptions, astigmatism and presbyopia.

Who Benefits from Specialty Contact Lenses?

Specialty medical contact lenses may provide improved vision and improvement of symptoms if you have a history of medical-related eye conditions such as keratoconus, corneal scarring, corneal transplant, refractive surgery, corneal ectasia, dry eye disease, ocular graft versus host disease (GVHD) and Stevens-Johnson syndrome (SJS).

Patients who struggle with the following conditions often find significant relief with specialty lenses:

• Keratoconus & Other Corneal Ectasias When the cornea becomes irregularly shaped or thins over time, soft lenses often cannot provide clear, stable vision. Rigid gas-permeable (RGP), scleral, or hybrid lenses can vault or reshape the tear film over the cornea, delivering sharper vision and better comfort.
• Severe Dry Eye or Ocular Surface Disease When the eye’s surface is compromised by severe dry eye, ocular surface disease, or irregular tear dynamics, specialty lenses (especially scleral lenses) act as a fluid reservoir, protecting the cornea and promoting healing while improving comfort and vision.
• High or Irregular Astigmatism Some patients have significant or irregular astigmatic distortion that is not well-corrected by soft toric lenses. Specialty gas-permeable or hybrid lenses can precisely match the corneal contour and deliver crisp vision.

The Fitting Process: What to Expect

Our clinicians use corneal topography, wavefront mapping, and slit-lamp imaging to map each eye’s surface in detail, ensuring the most precise lens design. The specialty contact lens fitting process typically involves multiple appointments to ensure optimal comfort and vision. Specialty lenses require follow-up and adjustments. At NECO, we track your ocular health and lens performance over time to ensure comfort and safety.

The Future of Specialty Contact Lenses

GP and custom soft lenses have become more popular over the past 10 years. The success of scleral lenses and orthokeratology lenses have played a role in this growth, and have likely reminded practitioners of the availability of lens materials and customization that can greatly impact the vision and quality of life for their patients.

Recent advances include MiSight is the first FDA-approved multifocal contact lens for myopia control. The design helps slow eye growth to prevent myopic progression while improving distance vision. Additionally, cutting-edge technologies like EyePrintPRO (custom, impression-based lenses) and digitally designed freeform scleral lenses are revolutionizing how practitioners can customize lenses for individual patients.

Why Professional Fitting Matters

As 1-800 Contacts and other discount lens entities continue to infiltrate the marketplace, ODs have an opportunity to differentiate themselves by focusing on what they do best: providing quality, specialized eye care. Given today’s contact lens advancements, that includes offering access to a variety of specialty lens modalities to meet the visual needs of each and every patient.

North Shore Advanced Eye Care exemplifies this commitment to personalized care. At NSAEC, a distinguished private practice renowned for its cutting-edge technology and personalized approach, Dr. Edward J. Moylan leads a team committed to delivering top-tier primary eye care services tailored to meet each patient’s unique needs and preferences. Our office provides quality comprehensive care with a very personal touch.

If you’re experiencing discomfort with traditional contact lenses or have been told you’re not a candidate for contacts due to your prescription or eye condition, specialty contact lenses may be the solution you’ve been seeking. The advanced options available today can transform your vision experience, providing the clarity and comfort you deserve.