CLE Contact Lenses

If you’ve picked up on the tone of my last few blog posts you’ll surely have noted that they’re not the deepest, most scientific or serious of posts. In honor of what remains of our glorious summer season here in the Northeast, I offer you this:

Mickey Mouse Wears Frequency Toric Contact Lenses and I can prove it.

Last week we took our first ever family trip to Disney World in Orlando, Florida. For anyone who hasn’t been to Disney lately (it’s been nearly 15 years for me), it really has grown. There are now 6 or 7 parks (which include two water parks) and probably more than 20 different hotels. More rides, more stores, more restaurants and a really cool safari. All of that aside, let’s never forget who started and remains at the heart of Disney… Mickey Mouse. Now go ahead and ask how and why has Mickey Mouse become a topic of conversation on a replacement contact lens website?

While at a character dinner in one of the restaurants in the Magic Kingdom I struck up a conversation with none other than - The Mouse. Mickey Mouse. While you may find it funny or not too believable, as the mouse is not supposed to “talk to the guests”- I was able to get him to chat with me when I asked him how in the heck he could see so well from inside of his suit. With a flick of his head and a motion of his arms he appeared to laugh and from inside of the suit. Then I heard him say, I’d be blind if I weren’t wearing contact lenses right now. I laughed my butt off. Always the salesman, I told him I was a partner in an online contact lens company and would love to sell contacts to Mickey Mouse. I asked him what type he wore and he told me Frequency Toric. I tried to hand him one of my cards and he motioned at a laugh and pointed to his sides, where it was obvious there was nowhere to put it. I wished him well, repeated the name of our website. Now I find myself sitting here in the office hoping to one day get an email or even better, an order – from the Big Cheese!

Hey, it’s the least he could do after all we just gave him this past week!!

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Four customers in the last three days have asked our resident eye doctor if they could swim with contact lenses. If four of our customers in the last few days want an answer to this question, I presume there are probably thousands of contact lens wearers across the nation that must be wondering the same thing.

While there is no hard and fast rule as to whether you can wear contact lenses while swimming, it is important to use a measure of common sense and to understand exactly how contact lenses stay in place.

Contact lenses don’t actually adhere to the eye but rather, sit on its surface. The natural moisture in both the eye and in the contact lens, coupled with the fact that lenses are custom shaped to fit the unique curvature of the eye – create a natural bond. The bond however was not made to stand up to the rigors of swimming, at least not without taking sufficient precautions.

When swimming in a chlorinated pool or in a salt water pool, lake or ocean it’s important to wear some form of eye protection such as swimming goggles or a mask. The swim mask works by keeping excess moisture from dislodging the bond between the contact lens and the eyes surface. Additionally, swimming goggles create a natural pocket of air between the eye and the water. The pocket of air, in addition to keeping water out, helps keep the lenses in because of the air pressure present between the mask and the eye. This pressure is often more than enough to keep contacts in place without shifting.

Another option to swimming with contact lenses on is to have a custom made pair of swimming goggles or mask which incorporate a prescription lens into the fabrication of the protective eye wear. This is a much more reliable way to insure 20/20 vision underwater but can be a much more expensive option.

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