If another eye doctor said you couldn’t use contact lenses because of an oddly shaped cornea or eye condition, there’s a good chance you can wear scleral contact lenses. The experienced optometrists at Eye Q Optique offer scleral contact lenses because their size, shape, and ability to deliver moisture to your eyes make them a perfect fit, even for difficult conditions like keratoconus or dry eyes. To learn if you can wear scleral contact lenses, call the office in Buffalo Grove or the Tri-Taylor or Near West Side neighborhoods of Chicago, Illinois, or book online today.

What are scleral contact lenses?

Scleral contact lenses are gas permeable lenses with a shape that sets them apart from all other contact lenses. The benefits of scleral contact lenses include:

Designed with a unique shape and large diameter

These lenses vault over the cornea, leaving space between the lens and your cornea. Their wide diameter lets them rest on the white part of your eye (the sclera). By comparison, regular contact lenses rest directly on the cornea.

Supply oxygen

As gas permeable lenses, scleral contact lenses have a rigid structure that lets oxygen flow through the lens and reach the surface of your eye. That is essential because your cornea gets its oxygen from the air.

Provide moisture

Scleral lenses hold a small amount of artificial tears that nourish and moisturize the cornea.

Customized for your eyes

Your scleral lenses are completely customized to fit the shape and steepness of your cornea. That allows the lens to work well for all eyes, including those with highly irregular corneas.

Who benefits from scleral contact lenses?

Scleral contact lenses work well for people who can't wear regular contact lenses due to: 

• Keratoconus
• Severe dry eyes
• Refractive surgery ectasia
• Corneal transplants
• Irregular astigmatism
• Sjogren's syndrome
• Cornea scarring

Your provider may also recommend scleral contact lenses to correct common refractive errors like nearsightedness, farsightedness, and presbyopia.

How do I take care of scleral contact lenses?

When you get your scleral lenses, you wear them for a limited time each day. Then you gradually build up the time until you can comfortably wear them for a full day.

You need to take scleral lenses out every night to clean them, removing the protein, mucus, and debris that accumulate on the lens during the day. You use a specialized solution that cleans and disinfects the lenses, and then let them soak in their case overnight to ensure deep cleaning.

The next day, you fill the bowl of the lens with a preservative-free sterile saline solution and insert the contact into your eye, being careful not to spill the solution.

If you use eye drops for conditions like allergies or glaucoma, you should use the drops at least five minutes before inserting your scleral lenses. However, you should insert the lenses before applying facial moisturizers or makeup.

To learn if you're a good candidate for scleral lenses, call Eye Q Optique or book an appointment online today.