Colored Toric Contact Lenses

Did you believe that contact lenses for astigmatism, toric contact lenses, didn't come in disposable, frequent replacement, multifocal, or colored varieties? In reality, unless you have a particularly complex prescription, your astigmatism can probably be corrected with soft contacts, and you have many options, including colored contact lenses.

Colored toric contact lenses are made from the same materials as regular spherical contact lenses, so they can be either soft or RGP.

Toric lenses have two powers in them, created with curvatures at different angles (one for astigmatism, the other for either myopia or hyperopia). There's also a feature to keep the contact lens relatively stable on the eye when you blink or look around. To provide sharp vision, toric contact lenses should not rotate on your eye.

Properly fitting a colored toric lens takes more of your eyecare practitioner's time and requires more expertise than for regular contact lenses. So you can expect that a fitting for torics will be more expensive than a regular contact lens fitting.

Colored toric contact lenses themselves also cost more than spherical lenses.

But note that if you have only a small amount of astigmatism, between zero and 1.00 diopter (either +1.00 or -1.00), you may be able to wear a regular spherical RGP or even a spherical soft lens. With RGP lenses, their rigidity can help mask a need for an astigmatic correction, by causing the formation of a lens behind the lens that is made from your own tears.

With soft contact lenses, some opticians choose to fit you with a higher powered spherical soft lens to mask a small astigmatic correction. The results of this technique vary from one patient to the next, which is why the fitting process may take some trial and error by both the doctor and the patient.

Also, some lenses are available that might reduce the spherical aberration of your eye that exists along with the myopia or hyperopia, and astigmatism.

Because rigid lenses retain their shape on the cornea better than soft lenses, they tend to provide crisper vision to people who have astigmatism.

Many brands of soft colored toric contact lenses are available today, so your optician can choose the brand with the best characteristics for your particular vision.

Toric lenses are available as frequent replacement, disposable and even daily disposable lenses. Some colored toric contact lenses are available as disposables, but most colored torics are non-disposable, conventional contact lenses.