Question about toric contact lenses?

Question

I have astigmatisim and my eye doctor said that it was not bad enough to wear astigmatic lenses but I was wondering if they made the bump on toric lenses smaller for people with astigmatisim that is not very bad. And also, what is the difference between toric lenses and astigmatic lenses?

Answer 1

The size of the " bump" on the lenses doesn't have anything to do with the power , that is just to make it rotate to the right position on your eye.

Astigmatic lenses and Torics are the same thing. Torics correct astigmatism.

But they only start at 0.75 because less than that isn't worth correcting.

If you have a 0.50 astigmatism , then a 0.25  ( 50% of the 0.50 )is added to the sphere power to cover it.

If you only have a 0.25, then it isn't bothered with at all and won't bother you with contacts

And depending on how high the sphere power is, sometimes even a 0.75 astigmatism doesn't have to be corrected with a Toric lens.

Your astigmatism must be below 0.75...so, it's nothing to worry about.

Answer 2

Like Footprintz said, toric lenses and astigmatism lenses are the same thing.

The only difference between toric lenses and spheric (regular power) lenses is that toric lenses have "weights" that make sure they stay in alignment on your eye since lenses rotate each time you blink. If you have an astigmatism that needs correcting,  this is important because the contact needs to sit in a certain position on the eye (called the axis) so that all the light entering the eye is refracted at the same angle (astigmatism is when the light entering your eye is refacted at different angles and scattered rather than converging in one spot.)

Take a look at your glasses perscription under the part that says Cylinder. This will tell you what your astimatism is. If its -0.50 or less then there's no need to worry about it at this time. However, if you notice problems, especially while driving at night, go back to your optometrist. Your perscription may need to be rechecked.

Answer 3

hydrogel vision corp now makes a lens called "extreme H2O LC" (LC stands for "low cyl") that was designed for these types of situations.  it comes in a cyl power of -0.67

also "aspheric" lenses like biomedics premier and the new avaira from coopervision work well in these "tweener" cases (IMO, anyway)