Are you a contact lens wearer? Do you want to be? If so, in addition to your comprehensive eye examination, you'll need a contact lens "fitting" which is the first step necessary to the process of fitting contact lenses. Contact lenses are classified as a medical device by the FDA and as such are subject
to their rules and regulations, namely The Fairness To Contact Lens Consumers Act. This law protects both the consumer and the optometrist by providing very clear guidelines as to what constitutes a valid contact lens prescription, how long before these prescriptions expire, etc.
In some cases, we will need to perform up to 30 additional diagnostic steps to produce a contact lens prescription for you. The "fitting" process includes these additional steps and tests, along with setting you up in diagnostic lenses and all follow-up care. These additional steps require additional time and thus additional cost. Please inform our office that you're in need of contact lenses when you schedule your exam. This will let them know to allow extra time for the extra steps, ensuring a successful outcome.
The fitting process is both a science and an art which requires a high level of expertise and experience on the part of the optometrist.
Once Dr. Shake has done his additional testing (see below) and determined which modality best fits your needs, you'll need to actually try on the lenses he is suggesting. Our office stocks diagnostic lenses for fitting purposes so we'll give you a pair to put on at the time of the initial exam.
At this point, if you are a new contact lens wearer, you will go through an extensive training on insertion, removal, and cleaning of contact lenses. This process can take anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour or more.
Once the diagnostic lenses are on your eyes and settled in, Dr. Shake will do additional testing. You'll likely be able to take the diagnostic lenses home with you. The idea here is to wear them in your real life for a week to see how they settle in and then return for a follow-up appointment a week or so later.
The follow-up appointment is a necessary and important step in finalizing your contact lens prescription. The way each contact lens interacts with your eye chemistry can only be determined after you've worn it for a while. Usually, only one follow-up is necessary but not always. Sometimes, with more complicated fittings, you may need to come back several times, allowing Dr. Shake to "tweak" the prescription in order to provide the most accurate and comfortable vision.