Who Is a Candidate for Scleral Lenses?
Scleral lenses are generally utilized in situations that trigger an irregularly formed cornea, similar to keratoconus, or with corneal transplants and corneal scarring. However they’re additionally used to assist folks with extreme dry eye illness and ocular floor problems, Kampani says.
- Corneal illnesses and situations that trigger cornea-shape irregularities
- Different types of irregularities like astigmatism
- Refractive surgical procedure sufferers, similar to those that have undergone Lasik eye surgical procedure
- Scarring or corneal injury from accidents
- Issues that have an effect on the eyelid or space surrounding the attention
- Circumstances that require making use of treatment to your eye floor and maintaining it there
Galor says scleral lenses may be particularly helpful for sufferers whose eyes wrestle to provide or keep sufficient tears. With Stevens-Johnson syndrome, for instance, the place long-term restoration of the ocular floor could also be restricted, scleral lenses present a steady lubricating setting over a particularly dry and broken eye floor, she says.
They’re additionally helpful in instances the place treatment must be administered, she says. “The fluid reservoir beneath the lens helps defend and hydrate the cornea all through the day, and medicines can typically be added to the reservoir together with preservative-free saline, similar to autologous serum tears in chosen sufferers,” she says.
Scleral lenses usually are not restricted to individuals who already put on contact lenses. “I’ve many sufferers who use these lenses for dry eyes who’ve by no means used contacts earlier than,” Kanevsky says.
That mentioned, scleral lenses usually are not the correct match for everybody. As a result of they require every day insertion, elimination, and cleansing, sufferers want hand-eye coordination and guide dexterity. “Sufferers with hand tremors, extreme arthritis, or younger youngsters, for instance, could have a way more tough time,” Kanevsky says.
For a lot of sufferers, placing on the lenses can initially really feel intimidating. Kanevsky says she remembers becoming her first scleral lens greater than a decade in the past on a affected person who had two consecutive corneal transplants.
“The most important problem to this present day stays overcoming the worry of putting an intimidatingly giant object precariously balanced on one’s fingertips, full of fluid, whereas hovering facedown over a desk or sink all of the whereas praying that it doesn’t go down the drain and it goes in with out an air bubble,” Kanevsky says. “As soon as the affected person will get over that steep studying curve, the lenses themselves are actually life altering.”
Sufferers should even have secure corneal and ocular tissues to tolerate the lenses, Kampani says. Should you’ve had a corneal transplant that’s harassed or swollen, a scleral lens might not be a great possibility till the world calms.
