Are you looking for a brand of toric contact lenses for astigmatism that let you maximize the amount of time you can keep them in your eyes? Most extended wear brands allow up to seven days of continuous wear. But there is one brand, Purevision Toric contact lenses from Bausch and Lomb, that are approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for up to thirty days of continuous non-stop wear before needing replacement. That is an incredibly long period of time for contact lenses.
If you’re curious to know what makes such long periods of wearing time possible, the secret is a substance Bausch and Lomb calls AerGel. It’s what the lenses are made of, and it is a special hydrogel that permits up to five times as much oxygen as other lenses to pass through to the eye. Your eye needs to oxygen at all times to remain healthy, so any lens that is to be used for 30 days must behave almost like having nothing on the eye at all. That’s exactly what AerGel is like.
As you can imagine, any lenses that are worn for such a long time will face the challenge of staying clean. Purevision Toric lenses accomplish this via a process Bausch and Lomb calls Performa, which is the injection of ionized gases into each lens and swells its ability to absorb and retain water. This extra moisture helps to keep the lens free and clear of debris and dirt. Performa also helps to wash away the proteins and lipids that tend to accumulate over time, which helps to eliminate any feeling of scratchiness or dryness.
OK, so you can wear these lenses a very long time, but what about curing your blurry vision? Astigmatism is a condition where the eye is shaped more like an oval or egg rather than a perfect sphere. This distorts the passage of light rays into the retina, causing them instead to scatter around. When you wear lenses like Purevision Toric, they behave as a prism that sits atop the cornea and compensates for its odd shape, which restores perfect vision by re-focusing light rays on the retina where they belong.
In order for the lenses to serve as a good refracting medium, they must maintain their position on the cornea at all times. Purevision Toric lenses feature specially crafted rounded edges that force the lenses to stay still instead of rotating around. In addition, these unusual edges permit your eye’s natural tears to get behind the lenses, keeping everything wet and clean.
As with any other lens, it is important that you consult your eye doctor. The idea of such long periods of extended wear is attractive, but only your doctor can tell you if your individual physiology and medical needs will allow you to tolerate the lenses for an extended period of time between replacements.
While most people will want these lenses for their extended wear properties, many people also choose to wear and remove them on a daily basis with their doctor’s consent. The same properties that make these lenses possible for such lengthy extended wear also makes them outstanding daily wear lenses in their own right for people not interested in wearing them non-stop.
Whether you use Purevision Toric lenses for daily wear, for the maximum 30 days of extended wear, or anything in between, you will probably be happy with the way these lenses feel and the way they cure your astigmatism. Whether it’s the self-cleaning properties, the high oxygen permeability, the excellent wearing comfort, or the flexible wearing schedule, there is something in these lenses for everyone to like. Try them out and see for yourself why they are one of the most popular brands of toric contact lenses out there.
