subject: Keratoconus And Soft Contact Lenses [print this page] For individuals who have Keratoconus making use of contact lenses is frequently the greatest means to achieve vision correction. There are numerous various sorts of lenses and this article looks at the constraints of Soft (Hydrogel) lenses for Keratoconus.
Keratoconus is an illness of the eye. In individuals with this condition, the cornea, which is the front component of the eye, thins and comes to be misshapen resulting in the front of the eye establishing an uneven 'conical' shape.
This standing out causes distortion of the light entering the eye which outcomes in blurring as well as ghosting of images.
While glasses might make some correction for early, or very light, situations of Keratoconus, when the problem advances past a certain point it becomes impossible to obtain acceptable correction with spectacles.
Contact lenses are typically the following sort of correction used, nevertheless there are countless various types of contact lenses and also some of them are more efficient than others.
Hydrogel lenses are just what are at times called 'soft' contact lenses.
Traditional Hydrogel lenses are extremely soft as well as thin and as such they fit really closely to the cornea of the eye.
This has the advantage of making them very comfortable to use and also this is, of course, one of the reasons they have actually come to be the most well-liked kind of lenses for ordinary vision correction.
Nonetheless, this close fit indicates that they are of really restricted use in the treatment of Keratoconus.
Due to the fact that they suit incredibly closely, they form the exact same shape as the cornea. As it is this very shape of the cornea that is the basic source of vision issues in someone with Keratoconus, the correction supplied by these extremely soft and also thin lenses is minimal.
If you picture that a typical eye is rounded like a soccer ball as well as an eye with Keratoconus is fashioned even more like the end of a rugby ball. In order to repair vision the form at the front of the eye has to be made as close to the ordinary form as possible.
A standard Hydrogel lens resembles laying a towel over the end of the rugby ball. It forms to the shapes as well as the light coming into the eye is still misshaped.
In the last few years there have actually been some advances in contact lens component modern technology. Brand-new components have allowed the production of contact lenses that are slightly thicker than conventional hydrogel lenses.
Although they maintain much of the comfort of soft lenses they have even more of a tendency to hold their own shape rather than merely draping over the area of the eye.
This means that they are able to be even more effective for some cases of Keratoconus than has previously been feasible with hydrogels. Having said that they are still of restricted consequence if the condition comes to be more serious.
