The Northglenn and Arvada Optometric Centers regularly fit a variety of specialty contact lenses including gas permeable lenses, bifocal contacts, colored contacts, extended wear lenses, and Nike MAXSIGHT lenses. Please continue to read on about why one of these varieties may be an excellent choice for you.

Gas Permeable Contact Lenses:

Gas permeable lenses are extremely breathable, transmitting more oxygen than the typical soft contact lens and therefore, providing great health for the cornea. Because of the more firm nature of the gas permeable lens, there is more durability and longer lifetime of the lens, which can be an economical approach to contact lens wear. Patients that tend to have longstanding comfort issues with soft contact lenses can find that long-term comfort with gas permeable lenses can be excellent. This is due to the fact that the gas permeable material is more resistant to deposit buildup as compared to a soft contact lens material. These lenses have superior optics and can be used to manage and optimize vision in different eye conditions. For example, keratoconus, which is a corneal-thinning disorder that causes large amounts of induced astigmatism and therefore unclear vision, can be treated in it's mild to moderate stages with a special gas permeable contact lens. These lenses can also be ideal for other patients with strong amounts of prescription with a high demand for extremely sharp vision.

Bifocal Contact Lenses

These lenses are a great option for individuals that require both a distance and a reading prescription. A concentric lens design with alternating distance and reading zones allows the patient various levels of prescription needed for different viewing distances.

Colored Contact Lenses

These lenses are great for anyone who desires to either enhance their existing eye color or for those who wish to dramatically change their overall eye color. There are subtle tints available for light-colored eyes and more opaque shades for darker eyes. The color options range from blues, greens, and violets to grays and hazels. In fact, even if your eyes don't require a prescription, you can still use contact lenses to alter the color of your eyes for simply an aesthetic change.

Extended Wear Contact Lenses

This particular type of contact lens is made of a specialized soft contact lens material called silicone hydrogel. It is an extremely oxygen-permeable material that has been FDA-approved to leave in the eye continuously for either 7 days or 30 days (depending on the brand of contact lens). These lenses are great for patients who either wear their lenses more than 14 to 16 hours a day or those who find themselves napping or falling asleep often with their contact lenses in their eyes. It's also a nice option for individuals who have strong prescriptions and would like to wake up in the morning and be able to see everything without having to search for their glasses to put on. These lenses don't have to be worn continuously, but provide a nice option for activities such as camping or vacations when leaving in your lenses overnight is a great convenience.

Nike MAXSIGHT Contact Lenses

This specialty soft contact lens is specifically beneficial to athletes in reducing glare and enhancing contrast. These lenses come in two available tints, which include grey-green and amber. The grey-green tint is successful at reducing excess glare that can be a common nuisance for golfers and runners. By blocking out excessively bright sunlight, these lenses can help to enhance contour recognition and in general, object detail. The amber tint has shown to be beneficial to those who play baseball, soccer, football, and tennis. This special color enhancement allows moving balls to stand out against their background and therefore, be more easily and accurately targeted. In addition to improving athletic performance, another great quality of these lenses is that they reduce the amount of UVA and UVB ray exposure to the eyes. Also, like colored contact lenses, the Nike MAXSIGHT contact lenses are available in both prescriptive and non-prescriptive form. So if you don't require any vision correction, but would like to benefit from the enhancing tints, this lens would be a great option.