If you have unsatisfactory results from refractive surgery like LASIK, PRK, etc, you can consider using hybrid contact lenses or custom gas permeable contact lenses to better your vision especially if you can’t take a follow-up surgical procedure. The rigid but smooth surface of these lenses can help you with your optical problems that soft contacts and eyeglasses cannot address. Hybrid and gas permeable lenses are the best choices for the sharpest vision after refractive surgery.
Why refractive surgeries don’t provide desirable results sometimes?
Laser vision correction procedures like LASIK, PRK, etc have high success rates. A recent study has found out that more than 95 per cent of people are pleased with the results of their vision correction surgery.
The reflective surgeries do not provide a perfect vision for everyone. The results you get depend on how your corneas respond to laser and the way your eyes heal after surgery.
Halos, glare and starbursts around street lights and headlights of cars can be a problem sometimes after refractive surgery. These refractive procedures can cause irregular astigmatism as well along with distorted and/or blurred vision.
When to wear Post-Surgery Contact Lenses?
Refractive surgeries reshape the front surface of the eye by removing microscopic tissues from the cornea. These vision correction procedures can, sometimes, cause irregularities in the shape of the cornea making your vision less distinct than it was with contact lenses or glasses before the procedure.
These irregularities after the surgery can, sometimes, be corrected with a follow-up procedure called an enhancement. Some factors like thinning of the cornea can rule out the option of an enhancement procedure. In that case, hybrid or gas permeable lenses maybe your best solution.
After-surgery Gas Permeable contact lenses:
The rigidity of Gas permeable contacts allows them to maintain their shape on the eye, unlike soft lenses.
The gap between the back surface of a gas permeable lens and the cornea is significant as it gets filled with tears. That moisture covers the irregularities on the cornea’s surface. The smooth front surface of the lens replaces the irregular corneal surface which eliminates visual distortions.
The custom contact lens for post-surgery fittings:
As laser surgeries can change the shape of the cornea, fitting contact lenses on them is challenging. Especially customized hybrid or gas-permeable designs are required in these circumstances.
These special gas permeable lens may have aspheric optics, a larger lens diameter or a design which has a flatter centre than the periphery. It can have a lens design used for orthokeratology to correct myopia.
Scleral Lenses:
Most of the eye care practitioners recommend scleral contact lenses for people who require non-surgical correction after surgery. Scleral lenses are gas permeable lenses with a large diameter. They vault over the whole corneal surface.
Sometimes eye doctors give custom contact lenses made with highly complex technologies like corneal topographers or aberrometer. These instruments obtain highly accurate measurements of the cornea which are used in crafting contacts that perfectly fit the eye.
Post-surgery Hybrid Contact Lenses:
The best alternative to a gas permeable contact lens for vision correction after surgery is Hybrid contact lenses. Hybrid contact lenses are designed to offer the best wearing comfort and aberration correcting optics.
Generally, hybrid contact lenses are as effective as gas permeable contacts to correct irregularities after eye surgery.
