Customized Contact Lenses – get your “finger printed” contact lenses
Text by Peter Tokarski, Cult of Vision boutique
What are GP Contact Lenses?
GP contact lenses are custom made for each individual. They are so unique like your finger print. Eye care practitioner measures the exact shape of your cornea and prescribes lenses with the curvature, size, and corrective power that suit your eyes in particular. Your lenses are produced in the lab with use of high-tech equipment, basing on exact parameters from the eye doctor and design from advanced software to fit your eye best possible and be most comfortable. They are handmade finished and passing through demanding quality control, before they come to you. GP contact lenses are not a mass production product.
Why GP lenses are better than soft contacts?
Most eye care professionals agree that gas permeable contact lenses generally provide sharper vision than soft contacts. This especially is true for people with certain types of astigmatism. GP lenses are designed to create a slight gap between the edge of the lens and the eye’s surface. This “edge lift” enables tears to flow behind the lens during and after blinks to provide more oxygen for eye health. Plus GP lenses GP lens materials allow oxygen to pass through the lens and reach your cornea and this is what distinguishes them from the old hard lenses. For one thing, hard lenses are not oxygen permeable. Another great advantage of GP lenses is that the surface of a gas permeable lens is more resistant to deposits than soft lenses and they are also less sponge-like and will not soak up substances that can house bacteria.
GP fitting process
Compared with conventional methods, the eye measurement and lens design for custom gas permeable lenses are much more complex.
The eye care practitioner who fits GP custom contact lenses uses a topographer to obtain curvature data from several thousand reference points on the eye.
These data points form a detailed map of the curvature of the eye, which the eye care practitioner and lens manufacturer then use to design a multi-curved lens surface that conforms much more closely to the surface of the cornea.
This customized design and fitting process creates a more comfortable fit — especially on irregularly shaped corneas and corneas with high degrees of astigmatism.
In addition to being produced with advanced lens fabrication equipment capable of creating surfaces with smoother point-to-point curvature changes, custom GP lenses typically are made with newer gas permeable lens materials that allow more oxygen to pass through the lens to the eye.
Because these newer materials allow more oxygen to reach the eye directly through the lens, eye care practitioners and contact lens manufacturers do not have to rely on tears pumping underneath the lens to maintain eye health. Therefore, the edge lift of customized lenses can be safely reduced and the curvature of the edge of the lenses can conform better to the peripheral cornea for a more comfortable fit.
Who Can Benefit From GP Custom Contact Lenses?
Nearly anyone who is dissatisfied with their vision with conventional soft contacts or who has tried conventional GP lenses and found them uncomfortable may be a good candidate for GP custom contact lenses.
And because custom GP lenses can be fabricated to fit unusual corneal surfaces, they often are an excellent solution for individuals with keratoconus or unusual corneal curvature — from natural causes, an eye injury or from an unsuccessful LASIK procedure or other corneal refractive surgery.
Also, multifocal custom gas permeable contact lenses are showing great promise for the correction ofpresbyopia. And some eye care practitioners report that custom GP lenses are more effective than conventional GP lenses for orthokeratology — a non-surgical treatment for myopia and astigmatism.
Though custom contacts cost more than traditional soft or GP lenses, they have the potential of providing noticeably sharper vision than standard prescription contacts or eyeglasses. Custom contact lenses also are a good alternative to LASIK and other types of vision correction surgery, with no worries about LASIK risks or potential surgical complications.
Because of the added expertise, time and advanced equipment required to fit custom contact lenses, these made to order lenses typically cost significantly more than regular contact lenses. Your eye care professional can advise you of the cost of the particular type of custom lenses best suited for your needs.
What is also very important for Cyprus residents due to weather conditions, GP lenses do not absorb water from the eyes like soft contact lenses do, so the patient’s eyes do not get dry in a hot atmosphere or in the wind, making it unnecessary to use moisturising drops.
Where to get them?
In Cult of Vision – Optometry Clinic& Laboratory you may get your fully customized lenses fitted by an eye care specialist and what is absolutely exceptional, produced in our own lab here in Paphos with the use of the best raw materials and the state of the art technology.