Ortho-K
How it works
The shape of your central cornea – the front part of your eye – is what focuses your vision. Incorrect shaping causes blurriness.
With Ortho-K, you sleep while wearing contact lenses custom-designed by Visique Optometrists. These retainer lenses gently mould your central cornea to match it to the optimal shape we have designed.
This reshaping causes light to be focused properly on your retina in a similar way that your glasses do, eliminating your blurred vision.
When you wake up and remove the lenses, you have clear natural vision, with no glasses or contact lenses needed.
An Ortho-K example
Overly curved cornea is causing short-sightedness
Ortho-K retainer lens is worn while sleeping
Cornea moulds to match the Ortho-K retainer as you sleep
Cornea remains reshaped during the day with the retainer removed
Continued improvement with Ortho-K
Your vision is improved the next day and continues to improve over the coming week.
Depending on your degree of correction your vision is usually stable within a week. With high corrections, it can take two to four weeks to stabilise.
The speed of corneal reshaping can vary from person to person, but most clients have 20/20 vision without additional correction within several days.
The cornea, whilst being mouldable, reverts to its original shape if lens wear is stopped, within one to two weeks – hence this procedure is completely reversible, safe and does not make any permanent changes to your eyes.
Comfort and safety
Ortho-K contact lenses are surprisingly comfortable to wear and most people comment that they forget they have lenses in after the first week of wear. With proper care and maintenance, they are safe, and the risk involved of infection and allergy shown to be no greater than day-wear soft contact lenses, with many studies showing a better safety profile than soft contact lenses.
The safety and effectiveness of Ortho-K has been demonstrated in many independent studies and is approved by the United States FDA. Ortho-K lenses are made from a material that is extremely permeable to oxygen.
You must have a healthy cornea that is free of any conditions that could affect the performance and safety of Ortho-K. These are the same criteria for any of the refractive error surgery corrections like LASIK.
Designing the Ortho-K lenses
Ortho-K could not be performed without a corneal topographer.
This device measures the precise shape or topography of your cornea creating a 3D map, enabling us to measure and describe changes during the Ortho-K process using more than 10,000 data points.
At your initial appointment our specialist Optometrists will take a range of measurements in each eye. Corneal topography does not touch the eye and takes only seconds to perform.
This data is imported into our EyeSpace lens simulation software to design your lenses. This software customises each lens to your prescription and eye shape to a degree of accuracy smaller than 1 micron.
Our specialist Optometrists will make changes to these lenses until they look optimal in the simulation before manufacture commences. This simulation process means that more complex prescriptions can be treated with Ortho-K, and provides the greatest probability of successful Ortho-K lenses with fewer fitting appointments.
Visique Optometrists Lower Hutt are proud to offer custom Ortho-K lens fitting using EyeSpace, the latest revolutionary fitting software from Innovative Contact Lenses and Manufacturing Technology.
This exciting development allows us to give even clearer, longer-lasting and more predictable vision than ever before!
A Corneal Topography example
Overly curved cornea is causing short-sightedness
The central area is compressed, correcting the short-sightedness
Direct from our EyeSpace mapping software, these 3D images show the changes to the cornea in Ortho-K treatment before (first image) and after (second image).
The central area inside the red ring has been compressed, correcting the short-sightedness.