Overnight contact lenses offer better daytime vision

COLUMBUS – People with mild nearsightedness have more options than ever for better vision. Many are choosing laser surgery for a permanent fix. But surgery isn’t for everyone. Now, years of research at Ohio State and elsewhere is bearing fruit, with a new therapy that offers 20/20 vision during the day without contacts or glasses.

The therapy, called corneal refractive therapy, uses a special kind of contact lens to reshape the eye while sleeping. The lenses are removed in the morning, leaving the wearer with improved vision during the day.

Optometrist Eric Ritchey, Cornea and Contact Lens Resident at the Ohio State University College of Optometry, says the lenses temporarily reshape the eye while the patient sleeps.

“Typically, people who are nearsighted have a little too much curve to the front of their eye. With this lens, we gently flatten that out a little bit and take care of the nearsightedness,” says Ritchey.

It takes most patients a couple of weeks of overnight wear to achieve the maximum result with the lenses. After that, the changes in vision are maintained throughout the day.

After some 5 years of research at Ohio State and elsewhere, the FDA has approved corneal refractive therapy as an alternative for nearsighted patients. After seeing nearly 100 patients in studies at Ohio State, optometry professor Joseph Barr says the lenses have many advantages

“About 2/3 of people who have this procedure will see 20/20, and about 95 percent will see better than 20/40 in the morning,” said Barr.“During the day, most people loose one line of visual acuity. What that means is if you start in the morning at 20/20, then at dinner time you might be 20/25.”

A major advantage of corneal refractive therapy – and a major difference from surgical fixes like laser surgery – is it’s reversible.

“Everything we know about this says its reversible,” says Barr.“So if you stop wearing the lenses, over a period of a couple of days your eye will return to where it was before. So the nearsightedness you had in the beginning will return. That’s a disadvantage in that you have to keep wearing the lens to have the result.

“On the other hand, it's an advantage because we’re not permanently altering your eye. And there are very good reasons why that’s a good thing. Some people who are nearsighted like to read without their glasses or contact lenses. So if you get to the age in life where you’re having trouble reading, maybe you wouldn’t want to do this anymore. So its nice we think that you can reverse this and go back to where you started.”

When the FDA approved the therapy in early 2002, it approved it for use by just one company. However, since fitting the lenses is more complicated than fitting everyday lens, the FDA is insisting that practitioners be trained in the therapy.

“You can go to your local optometrist,” says Barr.“However, FDA has required that the practitioners be certified. This is new in the contact lens field. So the manufacturer has to go out and educate, and Ohio State is involved in some of this education. In the past, if you had a license, you could fit contact lenses. But these lenses, you have to be trained first in order to do the procedure.

“Getting the lens centered on the eye and understanding the outcomes, how to solve any minor complications in fitting requires some training so that we do it right,” says Barr.

Contact: Eric Ritchey, 614-292-5859;
eritchey@optometry.osu.edu
Joseph Barr, (614) 292-0437;
Barr.2@osu.edu