there are a lot of people out there that suffer from dry eyes
and are constantly on the lookout to find contacts that might work for their eyes
and find out that they can't wear contacts well what if i told you there's not only a contact
lens out there that works for your dry eyes but may help treat your dry eyes in this video we're
going to talk about scleral lenses and how they may help treat dry eyes let's focus in
hey howdy everybody this is dr neal guymon, dr eyeguy with the show that helps keep your eyes
healthy and your vision clear and i make videos all about the eyes educational videos like this
one as well as how to and product reviews all about eye products so please subscribe so you
don't miss any of my future videos coming out now let's focus on lenses now probably the two most
common contacts you're aware of are soft contact lenses and then hard contact lenses or rigid gas
permeable lenses now both of these contacts soft contacts and the rigid gas permeable or the normal
hard contacts they're usually smaller than soft contacts both of them fit right onto
the cornea they're sitting right on the cornea of the eye now the reason why this might be an
issue for people that have dry eyes or severe dry eyes is because the cornea is one of the most
sensitive tissues of the body if you have dry eyes it may cause your cornea to develop keratitis or
these dry patches almost open wounds right on the surface of the cornea and can be really irritating
sometimes painful to the patient now sometimes a soft contact lens can actually help that condition
it can act like a band-aid right on the eye so it protects the eye from drying out or being exposed
to the air and so you don't get exposure keratitis or exposure inflammation on the eye now if you
have really severe dry eyes that contact lens can almost act like a sponge it can soak up the tears
that you have left in your eyes and actually cause your eyes to feel more dry cause more keratitis
or inflammation of the cornea so when people have dry eyes sometimes they can't wear a typical soft
contact or a hard contact lens because it takes whatever moisture they might have on their tears
and robs them of their tears and makes their eyes even worse makes their dry eyes even worse now
the possible answer to the people that have this type of dry eye can be scleral lenses the biggest
benefit to sclera lenses is the contact lens actually doesn't even sit or touch your cornea it
actually rests on the sclera or the white part of your eye hence the name scleral lenses now scleral
lenses have mainly been used for people that have irregular corneal shapes like keratoconus marginal
pallusa degeneration they've had a transplant they might have some scarring or a weird shape
cornea from the transplant and so these sclera lenses are a great answer because it can provide
really great vision it doesn't touch the cornea so we don't have to worry about
messing or interfering with the corneal shape even further and so sclera lenses have been
a great answer for these types of patients now steph curry who has keratoconus has been fit with
a scleral lenses that allows him to see better and actually be a better basketball player so you can
actually attribute all of his basketball skills and everything that is achieved through basketball
through his eye doctor and sclera lenses just so you know now before i get into what's nice
about sclera lenses for dry eyes i'm curious to know if you have worn a scleral lens or if you
are currently wearing scleral lenses especially for dry eyes or something else maybe keratoconus
i would like to know how many of you actually already wear sclera lenses so leave a comment
and a like down below now what's nice about a scleral lens is when you actually go to put it
in you're going to actually fill the scleral lens up with solution so it's actually full of a saline
ph balanced solution for your eyes and so when you actually go to put the contact lens in there
the contact rests on the white part of the eye the contact actually doesn't touch your cornea
instead between the contact and your eye is this solution and so your eye is constantly in a bath
of solution so it's almost like putting your eye in a bath all day long so it definitely
eliminates any type of exposure or dryness because it's constantly in contact with
a solution with a fluid now how do you know if you're ready for scleral lenses if you're a dry
eye patient because clear lenses can actually work for anybody even people that don't have dry eyes
don't have a large prescription they could wear a scleral lens now usually the dry eye patients that
end up in scleral lenses have already gone through a long list of dry eye treatments that didn't work
for them they've used eye drops eye drop gels they use they've done warm compresses and lid massages
they take omega-3 supplements to help with their oil glands they've done prescription medications
like restasis and xydra they've done it all and so sometimes the scleral lenses can be the answer
now one thing about scleral lenses is that it's not a standalone treatment people can still use
eye drops with scleral lenses they can still take their omega-3s warm compresses lid massages they
still do dry eye treatments scleral lenses are there to protect the eye it adds another layer of
treatment and eye protection for your dry eyes now there are some disadvantages to sclero contacts
for sure that we need to talk about now if you haven't noticed the scleral contact lens is huge
very very big compared to a soft contact lens or a normal rigid gas permeable contact so a lot of the
challenges come with the size of that lens it's definitely more difficult to put the contact in
you have to be able to maneuver your eyelids and put it in the right spot on your eye to be able
to get it in correctly now you still have dry eyes when you're wearing a scleral contact lens
and so a lot of patients will find while they're wearing the contact about the middle of the day
they might find out that the contact might get foggy or sometimes debris might get in between
the contact and the cornea within the solution and so they'll find that they have to take the contact
out clean it refresh it put more saline solution in there and then put it back in so definitely
less convenient than soft contact lenses for sure now with scleral contact lenses there's definitely
more time involved more time to learn how to put it in and take it out the care of the contacts
more time to fit it by your eye doctor and so with that comes the cost the cost of sclero contacts
is definitely one of the most disadvantages of these contacts definitely more expensive
than soft contacts or rigid gas permeable contacts for sure and so that's something to consider these
definitely will be more expensive so i want you to keep in mind that sclera lenses are definitely
a very very good option for treatment of dry eyes especially for those patients that have
a more severe dry eye or specifically and expose your keratitis or they have a lot of inflammation
or some type of dry eye where they just don't produce as much tears as they're supposed to
and they need an extra layer of protection from the environment from the atmosphere
this will do it and this will do it very well now if you know if somebody that suffers from
dry eyes and they've gone through a long list of treatment make sure that you share this
video with them so that they know that this is an option out there to help them with their dry
eyes okay and thanks for watching my video all the way through this is dr neal guymon dr
eyeguy focusing on you and your eyes and if you're interested in any of my other videos
click or tap the screen right there and i'll see you in the next video huge huge huge huge