Specialty Types of Lenses

Now that you understand the basics, let's talk about some specialty types of lenses. First, we have anti-fatigue lenses. Now these were designed specifically for non-presbyopic patients. While we wear them for every day distance viewing, while walking around or driving, these have the added benefit of a small bump in the bottom of the lens for up-close vision, meant specifically to reduce or sometimes eliminate the fatigue that we experience when doing long periods of work up close whether that be on a computer or in reading vision. So these are great for anybody that's non-presbyopic whether they be a student or medical professional or somebody that’s on a computer all day.

Next, we have digital single vision lenses. Digital single vision lenses are different than basic single vision lenses specifically for those patients that actually prefer their vision in their contacts versus regular glasses. And this is because when you get up above about + 2 diopters of sphere or above about -3 diopters of sphere, your patient’s start to complain, that in those single vision glasses “I can't see as clearly as when I look straight ahead.” Meaning I have to move my head around to see clearly because when they moved just their eyes, it's not clear through that lens. That digital single vision lenses actually do this in a way that they use digitally mapped surfaces to help expand the corridor of clear vision. So instead of having just the center of that lens to see clearly, it expands and allows them to move their eyes throughout most of that lens to see clearly, just like they do in their contact lenses.

Finally, we have occupational progressives. Now these are really on the rise and that's a great thing that more and more people are starting to become comfortable talking about and utilizing these lenses. As many of us, the strong majority are on computers all day long. And in an everyday progressive, for our presbyopic patients, unfortunately the smallest portion of clear vision in that lens is actually intermediate which is what we use on our computer. So an occupational progressive lens is actually a solution for that but instead of meant for distance viewing out of the top of the lens, the top portion of that progressive is actually meant for computer vision so that we have a wider corridor of clearer vision and then the bottom portion of that lens is a wider corridor for near vision so that we can do extended work at that same distance without having the fatigue that we would when wearing an everyday progressive.