Custom Contact Lens Can Be Made to Match the ‘Good’ Eye; Here’s How
While contact lenses are typically thought of primarily for their vision correction capabilities, they can also play major esthetic or cosmetic roles. At Miami Contact Lens Institute, we often hear from patients who are seeking to change the way their eyes look for one reason or another. Sometimes, the motivation is an eye injury that has left behind a highly visible disfigurement. Other times, the root of the problem is a congenital defect or medical condition that has left one eye looking abnormal or unusual. Sometimes, it is just to enhance or change the natural eye color. Regardless of the case, we can help. One of the specialties of our institute is in designing custom cosmetic or “prosthetic” lenses that effectively hide an eye-related disfigurement while also providing vision-related benefits.
About Our Prosthetic Contact Lenses
Because the eyes are so visible and considered to be “the windows to the soul,” an injury, scar, or abnormality can affect a person’s life in more ways than just impairing their vision. We have indeed spoken with patients who felt self-conscious about their eye injuries and who felt they couldn’t be 100 percent comfortable out in public because of them. It was because of early conversations such as these that we decided to put a lot of focus on developing a contact lens that could serve as an effective prosthetic.
How do these lenses work?
Essentially, every cosmetic lens we manufacture is customized based on the individual eyes of the patient. In many cases, whether the person has suffered an eye injury or carried around a congenital defect since birth, one of their eyes is “good” or “normal” while the other has the visible defect. We offer three different types of cosmetic/prosthetic lenses, all customized based on the look of the patient’s good eye. Our goal, with each lens type, is to design something that closely mimics the look of the natural eye. If we can make a defect, injury, or abnormality difficult or impossible to spot for someone who doesn’t already know to look for it, we do so.
Each type of cosmetic lens we offer accomplishes this feat in a slightly different way. The best option for each patient will depend on that person’s eye condition and the severity of the abnormality.
The first type of cosmetic lens: uses transparent tinting to change the color of the iris in a natural, subtle manner. Patients who have two eyes of very noticeably different colors appreciate this type of lens, which is tinted to overlap the iris and change the shade without affecting vision.
The second option is a standard opaque design: These lenses, while available in a wide variety of designs (including different colors, pupil sizes, iris diameters, eye shapes, and prescriptions) are all standardized, which means they won’t be as closely matched to the patient’s eye as some other options (see below). Depending on the look and shape of the “good” eye, though, it is sometimes possible to get a very close match with a standard opaque design contact lens.
The third and final option of our cosmetic lenses: is the custom hand-painted design. We can customize this lens to suit every single facet of a patient’s “good” eye, including sizes, curvature, alignment, and of course, iris color. Using detailed, high-quality digital photography of the iris, we carefully hand-paint the lens to achieve exact color matching and detailing, including color flecks and limbal rings that are unique to the patient. The result if the most precise and natural-looking cosmetic lens possible and is virtually imperceptible from the “good” eye.
We would love to discuss more about the specific psychological and therapeutic benefits of our cosmetic contact lenses. Contact us today to schedule your consultation.