Eyes of Winter Park is proud to report that Dr. Richardson is one of the few eye doctors in Winter Park that is trained to use contact lenses for therapeutic purposes. Most people wear contact lenses because they are a comfortable and convenient way to correct vision. Therapeutic lenses are used in special cases such as scleral contact lenses used to correct irregular corneas and custom painted lenses to reduce glare and reflections for albino patients who have semi translucent irides to name a few.
Remember that eyeglasses are always important, even for patients that mostly wear contact lenses for their vision correction, since sleeping in contact lenses is not recommended. Eyeglasses are used before contact lenses are inserted and also after they are removed at the end of the day. Consider the possibility of running out of contact lenses or not being able to wear contact lenses from an ocular injury or infection. These are other great tasks for an updated pair of prescription eyeglasses.
Your optometrist in Winter Park has been fitting these therapeutic contact lenses successfully for over five years. Dr. Richardson even has patients that travel from the Bahamas and as far as Venezuela for these specialty contact lenses. Lets present a case to demonstrate one example for the use of therapeutic contact lenses.
Ms. Maria is a 64 year old female who was referred to Dr. Richardson for his work in specialty contact lenses in Winter Park. During her initial exam, the patient reported that her vision was so poor that she had not been able to achieve a driving permit and that she was considered legally blind. Ms. Maria had visited many eye specialists over the last 20 years and none of them had been able to correct her vision successfully. They all claimed new technologies and better glasses; claims which always over promised and under delivered in their ability to correct her vision. Needless to say, Ms. Maria was very skeptical of any possible benefit that could be provided during her visit. A careful inspection of Ms Maria’s corneas, the surface of her eyes, displayed signs of a condition called ectasia. This is a condition that causes irregularity of the surface of the eyes. The etiology or cause of the corneal irregularity is multiple corneal replacements to both eyes. The patient felt vision was worsening and that it might be time for a third corneal replacement. It is important to note that these corneal irregularities do not correct well with standard eyeglasses or soft contact lenses and many patients like Ms. Maria are forced to suffer poor vision that can be corrected with scleral contact lenses. Dr. Richardson is your eye doctor in Winter Park trained to apply these lenses to your eyes.
After some initial measurements, scleral contact lenses were applied to both of Ms. Maria’s eyes. Even though these were trial lenses that are prefabricated and used to assess the way the lens fits on the eye, these particular trial lenses matched Ms. Maria’s refraction almost exactly.
When Ms. Maria looked up, she blinked a few times, then her eyes got very wide, she started to sob, and began to cry. She claimed her vision was perfect and so clear. The lenses were evaluated for the way they fit on her eyes to ensure a safe and healthy environment for her corneas. The patient was comfortable with the lenses on her eyes and her vision was better than she could remember. When tested on the vision chart, Ms. Maria came in with legal blindness and now with the help of Dr. Richardson and contact lenses in Winter Park she achieved 20/20 vision with each eye individually and will not need to have corneas replaced a third time.