When we arrive around the 40 year mark, presbyopia (the normal, age-related loss of flexibility of the lens inside our eye) will generally set in and make it difficult to focus on things that are near. In the more recent past, reading glasses were pretty much the only vision correction option available to those of us who wear contact lenses.
Today however, we have a number of multifocal contact lens options which are available for you to choose from. Here in Northern Colorado, the multifocal contact lenses offer the best vision correction of both worlds: no glasses, along with good near and distance vision.
Types of multifocal contact lenses
There are some multifocal contact lenses that have a bifocal design with two distinct lens powers – one for your distance vision and one for near. Other contact lens designs have a multifocal option that is somewhat like progressive eyeglass lenses; they have a gradual change in lens power for a natural visual transition from distance to close-up.
Here in Fort Collins, Loveland and Greeley we have multifocal contacts that are available in both soft and rigid gas permeable (RGP or GP) lens materials. They are designed for daily wear or extended (overnight) wear. The soft multifocal lenses can be comfortably worn on a part-time basis, because of this they are wonderful for weekends and other occasions if you prefer not to wear them on an all-day, every day schedule.
For the complete convenience try one-day disposable soft multifocal lenses which allow the wearer to discard the lenses at the end of a single day of wear. There isn’t any hassle with lens care or maintenance.
For some people in Northern Colorado, GP multifocal contact lenses will provide a sharper vision option than soft multifocals. However, because of their rigid nature, GP multifocal contacts do require some adjusting to and people generally find that they are more comfortable if the wearer conditions their eyes by wearing the lenses every day.
Today we also have the option of hybrid multifocal contacts! These contacts are an exciting new alternative in that they take much less time to adapt to wearing. These lenses have a GP center and a soft periphery.
Astigmatism? No problem.
In Fort Collins, Loveland and Greeley we have all types of multifocal contact lenses available, (GP, soft, and hybrid) to correct an astigmatism and at the same time correct presbyopia.
Monovision
You will need to have a contact lens fitting, if you want to know for sure if you’ll be able to successfully adapt to wearing multifocal contact lenses. There are some people who will not like multifocal lenses, find that they simply aren’t comfortable or don’t give you adequate vision. For you we have a monovision contact lens fitting may be a good alternative.
Today, monovision uses your dominant eye for the distance vision contact and the non-dominant eye for the near vision contact. In general, right-handed people will have the tendency to be right-eye dominant and left-handed folks will have the tendency to be left-eye dominant. Your eye care professional will be able to perform tests to insure that determination.
Usually, we find that single vision contact lenses are used for monovision. One of the advantages of this is that single vision lenses are less costly to replace; this will lower your annual contact lens expenses. There are some cases in Fort Collins, Loveland and Greeley, where better results can be achieved using a single vision lens on the dominant eye for distance vision and a multifocal lens on the other eye for intermediate and near vision. Your eye care professional may elect to go with a distance-biased multifocal on your dominant eye and a near-biased multifocal on the other eye. This technique is referred to as “modified monovision” fitting.
For additional information or to schedule an appointment, please call 970-204-4020 or click on the link on the side of the page.
