Why Do Contact Lenses Come In So Many Varieties? – Interview With Jayden

This article comes from our new optometrist Jayden Simpson’s interview on our YouTube channel. Jayden talks about contact lenses — and specifically, why they’re not the simple “off the shelf” product a lot of people assume they are.

If your only experience with contacts is from years ago, or perhaps a failed attempt that put you off entirely, keep reading. Modern contact lenses and fitting techniques have improved more than many people appreciate.

Key Takeaways

• Contact lenses today do more than correct a prescription — they can treat dry eye, irregular corneas, and presbyopia.
• A bad experience with contacts years ago doesn’t mean you’re unsuitable now — the technology has moved on significantly.
• Fitting a contact lens properly depends on the shape of your eye, not just your prescription.
• Everyday vision needs matter just as much as anatomy matters— a surgeon and a golfer need very different things from a contact lens.
• Getting it right takes time and genuine listening, not one standard approach applies to everyone.

Contact Lenses Can Solve More Than Most People Realise

“So these days, the way we view contact lenses is it’s not simply an alternative to glasses, or it’s something that fixes a prescription. There’s so many other uses, particularly in therapeutics.” — Jayden Simpson, Optometrist

A lot of people still think of contact lenses the way they did years ago — daily disposable vision correction that you wear once and throw away. We fit plenty of those at Ezekiel Eyes, but there’s a whole other category of contact lenses that most patients have genuinely never heard of, and it’s usually a bit of a surprise the first time we discuss the options with patients.

There are contact lenses for very high prescriptions, where glasses would otherwise cause peripheral magnification or minification depending on which way the prescription that is required.

We also have multifocal contact lenses for patients requiring both clear distance and near vision as they get older, which does away with the need to swap between two pairs of glasses through the day.

And finally, there are scleral lenses — which sit on the eye with a reservoir of fluid underneath — that we use to treat dry eye (among other things), keeping the front of the eye comfortable across a full day.

The point is, a contact lens isn’t just a substitute for glasses anymore. It’s become a genuine treatment option in situations where glasses were never going to be enough on their own, and the range of what’s available now is broader than most patients walk in expecting.

Today’s Contact Lenses Offer A Much Improved Experience

“The contact lenses that we’re fitting today are nowhere near like the contact lenses we were fitting 10, even 5 years ago.” — Jayden Simpson, Optometrist

Contact lenses today allow significantly more oxygen through to the eye than they used to, which makes a real difference to comfort over a full day of wear rather than just the first hour or two.

The optics have improved too, so the vision through them tends to be sharper and more consistent than older materials could manage.

As long as a patient is motivated to try again, there’s almost always another option worth exploring — and if one lens doesn’t work for a particular eye, there’s usually somewhere else to go from there rather than writing off contact lenses altogether.

There are so many options we can work through until something fits properly, which is a different mindset to how contacts were often approached in the past.

Why Contact Lens Fitting Isn’t A One-Size-Fits-All Process

“You really can’t take a cookie-cutter approach because of how different anyone is.” — Jayden Simpson, Optometrist

Why isn’t getting fitted for contact lenses more like buying a t-shirt off the rack? The answer comes down to how much variation there actually is, both in the eye itself and in how patient’s needs vary day to day.

Anatomically, no two eyes are quite the same. Corneas vary in shape from person to person, eyes vary in size, eyelid anatomy differs, and some patients bring a history of previous surgery or injury into the mix as well.

Then there are differences in daily vision requirements, which adds another layer entirely. A golfer wants sharp distance vision above everything else. A surgeon operating up close the opposite priority. Most people sit somewhere in between and need a lens that handles distance, close work and everything in the middle reasonably well, without any one of those being sacrificed for the others.

Put those two things together — the physical variation and the lifestyle variation — and it’s clear why the same lens simply isn’t going to suit the next person who sits in the chair. Getting it right takes listening to the patient properly and knowing the full range of what’s available, rather than reaching for whatever worked last time.

It’s partly science, and partly an art too!

Final Thoughts

If there’s one thing worth taking from this, it’s that contact lenses have become a lot more capable than most people give them credit for. They’re not just a stand-in for glasses anymore, and a bad experience from years ago doesn’t rule you out today.

If you’re curious about what newer contact lens options could do for you, book a consultation with us at Ezekiel Eyes.

Scheduling an appointment with us is straightforward and hassle-free. Simply give us a call at (08) 9386 3620, and our friendly staff will be happy to assist you in booking a convenient time for your consultation. Alternatively, you can click the “Request an Appointment” button to arrange a call-back.

YOUTUBE TRANSCRIPT

Patients are so surprised.

0:12

It’s one of my favorite things is, um, because out of Ezekiel Eyes we fit a lot

0:15

of the hard contact lenses.

0:18

So like you’re saying, traditionally when patients think

0:20

of contact lenses they think of those simple daily disposables,

0:24

you wear them and you toss them.

0:26

We fit those at Ezekiel Eyes, certainly, but we do a little bit more of the more

0:30

complicated special contact lenses, which are harder and they actually form

0:34

a smooth optical surface over the eye.

0:38

Patients are always surprised when you show them, they haven’t heard of them

0:41

before or they haven’t seen them before, but I think the main thing that surprises

0:45

patients with contact lenses these days is just how many problems you

0:49

can actually solve with them.

0:52

So these days, the way we view contact lenses is it’s not simply an alternative

0:57

to glasses, or it’s something that fixes a prescription, but there’s so many

1:01

other uses, particularly in therapeutics.

1:04

So you can use contact lenses to correct patients that have these really,

1:08

really irregular eyes where glasses just don’t work and they don’t get

1:12

good vision out of glasses.

1:14

You can use them when the prescriptions are really, really high as well, and you

1:19

put the prescription into spectacles and they cause this minification

1:23

or magnification. So contact lenses are great for that.

1:27

You can use them in patients that are getting a little bit older to give them

1:31

not only clear distance vision, but you can actually give them

1:34

near vision as well.

1:35

So there’s special multifocal contact lenses that you can use.

1:40

You can use contact lenses to treat dry eye these days.

1:44

So a lot of patients have dry eye symptoms and they have this discomfort on the front

1:49

of their eye, and there’s these special lens lenses called scleral lenses,

1:53

which basically you fill them up with a fluid reservoir and they sit

1:57

on the front surface of your eye and you have fluid sitting against

2:00

your eye for the whole day.

2:02

There’s so many different contact lenses these days, there’s so many different

2:07

options, they can deal with so many different issues.

2:10

They’re amazing.

2:11

I can’t overstate the possibilities and the amount of research that’s

2:15

going into the market these days.

2:16

There’s constantly evolving.

2:18

They can do a lot, they can do a lot.

2:21

So do you get patients who come in and say to you,

2:25

‘Look, Jayden, I tried contact lenses years ago and I couldn’t wear them,

2:29

they’re not for me’?

2:30

Has the technology behind contact lenses really changed a lot in recent times?

2:36

Do some of these people, some of these people may be not aware of

2:39

how improved the latest options are?

2:42

Oh, absolutely.

2:43

It’s a pretty common consult that we’ll do in clinic in that

2:47

we’ll have patients come in and they might have had a bad experience or it just

2:52

didn’t work and they’ll drop out of contact lenses for whatever reason.

2:56

As long as the patient’s motivated, in most cases we can

2:59

certainly find an option.

3:01

The amount of research that’s going on behind the scenes and the amount

3:05

that these contact lens technologies are developing is crazy.

3:08

The contact lenses that we’re fitting today are nowhere near like the contact

3:13

lenses we were fitting 10, even 5 years ago.

3:16

They’re so much more comfortable now.

3:18

The amount of oxygen that you get to the eye is a lot better.

3:21

The outcomes are just better as well.

3:23

The optics in the lens tend to be better.

3:26

Just because you’ve had an experience in the past,

3:29

I think the key message would be doesn’t mean that you’re unsuitable today.

3:33

I think in most cases than not, we just have so many different options,

3:38

so many different things that we can try if one thing’s not working.

3:41

We can just pivot to another thing.

3:44

Yeah, it’s amazing how quickly things are changing in the space as well.

3:50

So today I was at the shop and I bought myself a couple of t-shirts

3:54

and I was thinking, I know we’re going to have this conversation today.

3:58

I was thinking, why isn’t buying contact lenses a bit

4:01

like getting clothes off the rack?

4:03

Why is contact lens, why is getting fitted with contact lenses such

4:08

a personalized thing, customized thing?

4:11

Yeah, it’s a good— it’s a really good question.

4:14

I like to remind myself when we have a patient in the chair that each person

4:18

that’s coming into your chair, not only are they a different person

4:21

with different experiences, but they also have completely different needs.

4:25

So I guess it’s super important with these contact lenses,

4:29

especially the more specialized fitting, you really can’t take a cookie-cutter

4:33

approach because of how different anyone is.

4:36

The first thing is anatomically Eyes vary significantly across people,

4:41

so there’ll be different shapes of the cornea, which is the front of your eye.

4:45

There’s different eye sizes, there’s different eyelid anatomy.

4:48

Some patients would have had previous surgeries, some patients might

4:52

have had previous injuries.

4:55

That’s just the difference in the eye alone, which you need to account for.

4:59

Now the next thing you need to account for is patients’ everyday needs.

5:02

We might have someone in the chair that wants to play golf and they need

5:06

really, really good distance vision.

5:08

We sometimes have surgeons come into our practice as well that are operating,

5:13

and they need really, really good up-close vision.

5:15

We might have people for everyday use that need good distance

5:19

and close and intermediate.

5:21

So there’s so many different variables that need to be taken into account

5:26

when someone sits in the chair that you really can’t just give someone

5:30

a contact lens and give the next person the same ones.

5:33

It’s such a individualized, personalized thing.

5:37

And I think that’s where my, my passion for it comes in, is

5:41

if you listen to the patient and you take the time and you,

5:44

you’re really aware of all the options that are available, then you

5:46

can get an amazing outcome.

5:48

It’s a, it’s an art. It really is.

5:51

It really is an art and a science.

5:54

Yes, yes, exactly.