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Contact Lens Types

What You Need to Know

Contact Lenses come in many forms and perform many functions.

Soft Contact Lenses:

Soft contact lenses are soft, supple and they even fold in half. But, it is their size that makes them so tolerable. They are large enough to fit well under the eyelids and are therefore remarkably comfortable, even if you have never worn them before. These designs come in a wide range of replacement schedules.

Colored Contact Lenses:

These lenses come in a wide array of colors. They can enhance your natural eye color or change that color completely. Modern technologies give you a natural look in the eye color that you have always wanted.

Theatrical Lenses:

For those interested in a wide variety of contact lens designs from extreme vivid colors to wild eye designs, we fit an extensive collection of theatrical lenses for your performance on the stage or in your life!

Lenses for Astigmatism:

A contact lens rests on the clear window in front of the colored part of your eye. Rarely is this tissue the same shape in all directions. Most eyes have a small amount of irregularity called astigmatism. Most eyes need a correction for a refractive error (see your prescription) that can be provided by a standard or spherical contact lens. If you have a greater amount of astigmatism your Parrelli Optical® Eyecare Professional will fit you to a “toric” lens.

One of the reasons that a soft lens is so comfortable is that it drapes over your cornea. But, this allows an underlying irregular shape to transfer through the lens. A spherical contact lens will allow you to see better than with no correction, you will not see as well as you do with your glasses. “Toric” is Latin for two curves, and just like your spectacles, a toric lens has two curves cut on the back of it which align to the different curves on the front of your eye. These lenses provide great comfort and great vision.

There are dozens of soft contact lens manufacturers. There are hundreds of custom rigid contact lens laboratories. There are even a handful of custom soft contact lens producers. Each of these companies provides a lens or lenses that will fit a particular eye in need of a specific correction. At Parrelli Optical® we don’t fit lenses, we fit eyes. Every cornea on every patient is as unique as a fingerprint. We specialize in offering our clients the safest, healthiest and most comfortable contact lens to address their particular condition.

Learn More About Contact Lens Types

Soft

Gas Permeable

Hybrid

Multifocal Contact Lenses:

Single vision lenses let you see in the distance. When you also need help with reading, we can fit you to a bifocal contact lens. Spectacle bifocals have the distance correction on the top of the lens and the extra power for reading at the bottom. We have never been able to create a really effective contact lens that has allowed us to keep the reading segment in the right position. So all bifocal contact lenses use some combination of concentric rings. This allows you to see at distance and at near. Parrelli Optical® offers experienced contact lenses fitters who will use the latest innovations to provide you with good vision at distance, near and everywhere in between.

Rigid Gas Permeable Lenses:

While once reserved for the more complex prescriptions, high degrees of myopia or large amounts of astigmatism, rigid lenses are once again, increasingly popular. Originally we made rigid lenses from a plexiglass like product, the material used for storm doors. This plastic provided great clarity of vision, but did not allow oxygen to pass through to and provide nutrition for the cornea. As a result, we had to make the lens very flat so that it would rock and draw oxygenated tear film under the lens. This meant that the bottom edge of the lens literally stuck out and bumped the lid as the wearer blinked.

Modern gas permeable materials allow a high volume of oxygen to pass right through the lens. And, modern manufacturing technologies allow us to use complex designs that mimic the shape of the cornea, vastly improving wearer comfort.

There are dozens of soft contact lens manufacturers. There are hundreds of custom rigid contact lens laboratories. There are even a handful of custom soft contact lens producers. Each of these companies provides a lens or lenses that will fit a particular eye in need of a specific correction. At Parrelli Optical® we don’t fit lenses, we fit eyes. Every cornea on every patient is as unique as a fingerprint. We specialize in offering our clients the safest, healthiest and most comfortable contact lens to address their particular condition.

From the simplest and most straightforward to the excruciatingly complicated, only the professionals at Parrelli Optical® have the experience and the expertise to fit your eyes.

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