Types of Daily Contact Lenses

Selecting the right daily contact lenses depends on your eye health, lifestyle, and specific vision needs like astigmatism or digital eye strain. At Frame & Focus Eye Care, we specialize in high-oxygen silicone hydrogels and precision toric lenses to ensure long-term comfort and clarity.

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Key Takeaways: Simplified Vision Solutions

• Dailies Beat Allergens: Daily disposable lenses minimize eye allergy symptoms by eliminating the build-up of deposits and microorganisms, offering a fresh, clean surface every day.

• Zero Maintenance, Maximum Time: Choosing daily disposables removes the need for lens cleaning and solution purchasing, saving you both time and ongoing cost.

• Astigmatism Requires Precision: Toric lenses are the specific solution for astigmatism, designed with varying focal powers and built-in stabilizing features (like thin/thick zones) to ensure a precise fit and superior visual clarity.

• Stability Over Softness: While slightly firmer than conventional soft lenses for stability, the vision correction provided by Toric lenses for astigmatism significantly outweighs any minor difference in initial comfort.

• Consultation is Key: Always consult with your eye doctor to determine if you are a suitable candidate for daily disposables or specialized toric lenses, ensuring the best outcome for your unique visual needs.

Beyond Basic Materials: Why “Breathable” Lenses Matter

Most people think of soft contacts as simple pieces of plastic. However, during our specialty contact lens fittings, we categorize lenses by their oxygen transmissibility (Dk/t). Your cornea doesn’t have blood vessels; it “breathes” oxygen directly from the air.

• Traditional Hydrogel: Comfortable and soft, but it offers lower oxygen flow.

• Silicone Hydrogel: The modern standard. These allow significantly more oxygen to reach the eye, reducing the risk of “red eye” and swelling.

• Water Gradient Technology: This is the “luxury vehicle” of lenses.

• They feature a high-oxygen core, but the surface is nearly 100% water, creating a cushion of moisture so your eyelid never feels the lens.

The Digital Eye Strain Solution: Lenses Built for Screens

In our Richmond clinic, we see many “Solution-Seekers”—professionals and students spending 8+ hours on screens. Modern daily lenses are now engineered for the “Digital Blink Rate.” When we stare at screens, we blink 60% less, which is a major contributor to dry eye syndrome.

• Tear-Stable Technologies: New lenses use wetting agents that mimic the eye’s natural mucins to stay lubricated during long work hours.

• Blue-Violet Light Filtering: Some daily disposables now include a built-in filter to reduce the “scatter” of light from LED screens, helping to eliminate that “heavy-eye” feeling. If you experience persistent headaches or neck pain despite new lenses, you may want to learn about Neurolens therapy.

Disposable Lenses

As their name suggests, these daily contact lenses are disposable. This means that they can and should be discarded at the end of each day rather than re-worn. Disposable lenses do tend to be a little more expensive than some repeat-wear varieties, but the benefits usually outweigh the cost.

Some of the advantages of choosing daily disposable contact lenses include:

• You don’t have to clean them, which saves patients a great deal of time and hassle. It also helps save money in terms of the ongoing cost of cleaning solutions.
• Disposable lenses are also great for people with eye allergies. This is because with ordinary lenses, there’s an opportunity for deposits and microorganisms to build up. With daily disposables, allergens have less chance to attach themselves to the lenses and cause irritation and other allergy symptoms.
• You don’t need to schedule regular replacements either, which makes wearing contact lenses easier on your schedule.
• Disposable contact lenses are particularly good for people who have busy lives and are likely to cut corners when it comes to caring for their eyes or contacts, since there is no cleaning or maintenance required.

Daily disposable contact lenses are available in a wide range of prescriptions, including those for patients with nearsightedness and farsightedness. Your eye doctor will be able to advise you if you are a candidate for disposable contact lenses.

Toric Lenses

Toric contact lenses are recommended for patients who have a refractive eye problem called astigmatism. Patients with astigmatism have corneal abnormalities that cause the refraction of the eye to be different between the vertical and horizontal planes, causing blurred vision and difficulty seeing fine details. Toric contact lenses are shaped in a particular way that creates the different focusing powers needed in each part of the lens to correct your vision. For this reason, Toric lenses must be placed into the eyes in the correct position.

Fortunately, manufacturers design Toric lenses with features that help them to stay in place, including:

• Thin/thick zones
• Creating areas of the lens that are thicker or heavier, which helps secure it in position
• An area where the bottom of the lens is slightly cut off

To keep them stable, Toric lenses are a little firmer than conventional soft lenses. This means that some patients can find them a little less comfortable, but the superior vision they obtain outweighs this. Your eye doctor will be able to advise you if you are a good candidate for Toric contact lenses and which variety would best suit you.

The Multifocal Revolution: Clear Vision After 40

If you find yourself holding your phone further away or hunting for “cheaters” (reading glasses), you are likely experiencing Presbyopia. You don’t have to give up your dailies or switch to “monovision,” where one eye sees far and the other near.

Multifocal Daily Disposables use Zonal Aspheric Designs—multiple rings of power built into a single lens. Your brain naturally selects the focus it needs, whether you are looking at your dashboard, your laptop, or a restaurant menu. Because our tear film naturally changes as we age, we recommend a comprehensive eye exam to ensure your ocular health can support these high-performance lenses.

The Sustainability Factor: How to Properly Recycle Your Dailies

At Frame & Focus Eye Care, we are committed to the Richmond community and our environment. A common barrier for new wearers is “plastic guilt.” While daily lenses are small, the waste adds up if handled incorrectly.

• Don’t Flush: Never wash lenses down the sink; they contribute to microplastics in our water supply.

• Recycle with Us: We are proud to participate in specialized recycling programs. You can collect your used blister packs and lenses and bring them to our office. These are upcycled into park benches and recycled plastic pellets.

Resources and Citations

1. Understanding Astigmatism and Toric Lenses: Clinical guidance on corneal abnormalities and specialized lens solutions.

2. Benefits of Daily Disposables for Eye Health: Research supporting the reduction of microbial and allergen build-up in daily disposable lenses.

Ready to find the perfect fit for your lifestyle? Click here to contact us and schedule your personalized contact lens exam today!