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Specialist Contact Lenses

We are experts in fitting people with damaged, distorted and/or diseased corneas.

In fact, we get many referrals from Harley Street ophthalmologists and other optometrists around the country and Europe.

The cornea can become distorted in many ways. The most common reasons include keratoconus, corneal graft, post-LASER ectasia and corneal scars.

Keratoconus is a condition where the cornea thins. The cornea can no longer support itself and begins to steepen. The distorted cornea stops light being focussed properly at the back of the eye leading to blur, haloes, glare.


Topography image: In keratoconus the cornea becomes thin and starts to steepen in some areas. The red areas of this image show the steepening.

Many keratoconics find that glasses do not provide good vision and that is where contact lenses come in as they can often provide excellent vision even where the cornea is irregular.

In early keratoconus, conventional soft lenses may be adequate to provide good vision levels at first but as the corneal shape progresses, good vision and fitting can only be achieved with specialised lenses.   

Sometimes keratoconus progresses to such an extent that a corneal graft is required. Unfortunately specialised contact lenses are often still needed after the graft.

For a small proportion of LASER surgery patients a condition call post-LASIK ectasia occurs this is another form of keratoconus and requires contact lenses. Some LASER patients who suffer from glare post-surgery also benefit from contact lenses.

For patients who have any form of irregular cornea, we offer the latest lens designs that are often not available through the hospital eye service to provide good comfort and achieve best vision potential. We may even design a contact lens specifically for you.

Lens types for keratoconus include:

    • Rigid gas permeable lenses e.g. Quasar range, Dyna, Kerakone, Rose K2, Profile range, ALK
    • Soft lenses designed specifically for keratoconus e.g. Kerasoft IC, Reflex
    • Hybrid lenses e.g. Synergeyes Ultrahealth, Elements
    • Mini-scleral and scleral lenses –ICD, Zenlens, Comfort 15, SoClear, MAXIM, Innovative Sclerals, Jupiter, Wave.

Advancements in contact lens technology have enabled semi-scleral lenses to be made with a ‘toric periphery’ design as opposed to ‘single vision’ design. For the majority of people, we find that lenses with the larger diameters fit better with a toric periphery design. This type of fitting provides superior comfort as it contours the eye shape more accurately. Toric periphery also enables better correction of high levels of astigmatism.

Eaglet Eye ESP

Within the last few years, we have seen the introduction of the use of Profilometry. This is topographic mapping of the cornea and scleral and using the data to assist in the fitting of complex lenses.

Since 2018, we adopted the use of the Eaglet Eye Eye Surface Profiler. We primarily use the device to achieve a better Scleral lens fitting. It is particularly useful for fitting eyes with irregular corneal and scleral shape.