Bifocal Contact Lenses

Bifocal and multifocal contact lenses are created to supply clear vision at all distances for people who have refractive errors and also are experiencing the normal age-related decline in near vision called presbyopia.

Bifocal Contact Lenses: What Is It and How Do They Work

The primary sign that you’re establishing presbyopia — which generally becomes obvious in our 40s or 50s — is that you need to hold menus, newspapers and other reading material farther from your eyes in order to see them plainly.

Bifocal and multifocal contact lenses come in both soft products and rigid gas permeable (GP) materials. They are likewise offered as hybrid contact lenses. Some can be endured a disposable basis. That suggests you have the benefit of tossing the lenses out at defined periods (even daily, in many cases) and changing them with fresh, new lenses.

Several lens manufacturers provide multifocal contact lenses made of silicone hydrogel material. These lenses enable substantially more oxygen to reach the cornea than standard soft lenses for higher using comfort, and are available for both day-to-day wear and extended wear.

Brands of multifocal silicone hydrogel contact lenses readily available in the U.S. include: Air Optix Aqua Multifocal (Alcon); Bausch + Lomb Ultra for Presbyopia (Bausch + Lomb); Biofinity Multifocal (CooperVision); and Acuvue Oasys for Presbyopia (Johnson & Johnson Vision Care).

Other options consist of Duette Progressive (SynergEyes) and Duette Multifocal (SynergEyes) hybrid contact lenses, which have a main optical zone made from GP lens material for crisp optics and a peripheral fitting zone made of soft silicone hydrogel material for convenience.

Bifocal Contacts, Multifocal Contacts — What’s the Difference?

Bifocal contacts lenses have two prescriptions in the very same lens. Multifocal contact lenses have a range of powers (similar to progressive spectacle lenses) in each lens.

“Multifocal contacts” likewise is used as a catch-all term for all contact lenses with more than one power, consisting of bifocal contacts.

How Multifocal Contact Lenses Work

Bifocal and multifocal contact lenses operate in numerous different methods, depending on the style of the lens. The styles fall into two standard groups:

1. “Alternating vision” (translating) lenses are so called due to the fact that your pupil alternates between the two powers, as your look shifts upward or down.
2. “Simultaneous vision” lenses need your eye to be looking through both range and near powers at the same time. Although this might sound unfeasible, your visual system learns to choose the correct power option depending on how close or far you’re trying to see.

Simultaneous vision lenses can be found in two types: concentric ring styles and aspheric styles.

Rotating Bifocal Contact Lenses

Rotating or equating bifocals work similar to bifocal spectacles. They have two power sectors, with an obvious line of separation between the distance correction on the top and the near correction listed below. Your eye checks out either one or the other, depending on whether you’re looking far or near.

With bifocal spectacles, this mechanism works since the lenses remain in place even as your eye relocations. That can happen with contact lenses, too.

Considering that a lot of rotating bifocals are GP lenses, they are smaller sized in diameter than soft lenses, and they ride on your eye above your lower eyelid. Therefore, when your look shifts downward, the lens stays in location, enabling you to translucent the lower, near-correction part of the lens.

Concentric Ring Designs

This type of bifocal contact lens features a prescription in the center and several rings of power surrounding it. If there are multiple rings, they alternate between the near and range prescription.

Generally, at least two rings are within your pupil area, however this varies as your pupil expands and contracts due to varying light.

Concentric ring bifocal contact lenses can be made of either soft or stiff (GP) material. The places of the powers will differ:

• GP bifocals normally have the distance power in the center (called center-distance).
• Soft bifocal contact lenses usually have the near power in the center (center-near).
• Some soft multifocal designs are center-near on your dominant eye however center-distance on your non-dominant eye.

Aspheric Multifocal Contact Lenses

These multifocal contact lens styles work more like progressive spectacles lenses, where the different authoritative powers are mixed throughout the lens. Unlike spectacles, however, aspheric contact lenses are synchronised vision lenses, so your visual system must learn how to choose the proper prescription for the minute.

This is the only type of multifocal contact lens that can be described as “progressive.” It’s likewise concentric, like the concentric ring styles, and it has actually become the most popular type of multifocal contact lens.

Will Bifocal Contact Lenses Work for Me?

Bifocal contact lenses have actually been around for several years, however until just recently they weren’t incredibly popular.

Older bifocal styles didn’t please lots of people, resulting in aggravation among users and prescribers alike.

Today, new innovation has actually produced more successful styles, in addition to a greater variety of styles. So if one design does not work for you, another might.

Your doctor may likewise attempt these related methods:

• Monovision includes using single-vision lenses to put your near prescription on one eye and your range prescription on the other.
• Modified monovision uses a single-vision lens on one eye and a multifocal lens on the other.

Which Bifocal Contact Lens is Right for Me?

Two factors that your eye care practitioner will consider in selecting a bifocal contact lens are pupil size and your “include,” or near prescription.

There are no set guidelines. But in general, low adds are better matched to an aspheric multifocal. Rotating vision, achieved with an equating bifocal, is a better choice for high adds. Too large a pupil can be problematic for an aspheric multifocal lens.

You may need to try different bifocal contact lens styles before discovering the one that’s right for you. Many specialists provide totally free trial lenses to assist you through the procedure.

Remember that although trial lenses are complimentary, your doctor will still charge you for the multifocal fitting procedure, which can be more lengthy than a routine contact lens fitting.

See your optometrist to determine if bifocal contact lenses make good sense for your requirements and to identify the best lens for you.