A Doctor’s Guide to Hard Contact Lenses
When you hear the term hard contact lenses, you might be picturing the thick, uncomfortable plastics your parents or grandparents wore decades ago. Let's clear the air: those old-school lenses are a thing of the past. What Exactly Are Hard Contact Lenses? Today's "hard" contacts are worlds apart. We properly call them Rigid Gas Permeable…
Dr. Teresita Bollar, OD
Hard vs Soft Contact Lenses: Which Is Right for You?
About nine out of ten contact lens wearers are in soft lenses, and that is usually the correct answer. Rigid lenses are not a relic — they are the better option for a specific group of eyes, and a frustrating one for everybody else. The difference comes down to a single property: whether the lens…
Gas Permeable Contact Lenses: Sharper, Harder to Start
Rigid gas permeable lenses give the sharpest vision available in a contact lens, and they make you earn it with one to three weeks of adaptation. That trade is the whole story: better optics and lower running costs, in exchange for a start that soft lenses do not ask for. How they work RGPs are…
What Are Contact Lenses Made Of?
Nearly every soft lens sold today is silicone hydrogel. The material is not a specification-sheet detail — it determines how much oxygen reaches your cornea, how much water the lens loses during the day, and how many hours you can comfortably wear it. The three families 1. Hydrogel HEMA-based polymers saturated with water, between 38%…