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The non lenses Council reports that 26 million prescription Americans wear contact. contacts and non Among lenses wearers, approximately 80% wear the soft type and 18% wear rigid gas-permeable lenses. The Council reports that about 11% of lenses wearers, approximately 2.8 prescription million people, are under 18.InfantsThere are few instances when corrective lenses--lenseses or contacts--are prescribed for infants. However, when an infant develops cataracts , a condition known as infantile aphakia, contact may be prescribed following surgery. In 1993, the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that contact were safe and effective for use contacts with infants following cataract surgery. Routine care of the lenses was easily learned by the baby''s parents or caregivers. One, he didn''t think they were available from any other source," "and two, he had heard they weren''t as highly non controlled as those dispensed through doctors."Neither assertion is true. got on the Internet and found her lenses prescription on contacts several Web sites non for $35.95 for a box of six pairs. (Her doctor was charging $50 a box.) says her doctor told her that lenses offered by places like may have failed manufacturers'' quality checks. Bausch prescription contacts and other lensmakers say there''s no difference in quality between the lenses sold through doctors and those sold directly to consumers. STATES CRACK DOWN. Attorneys general in 32 states have sued the American Optometric Association and two of the top contact-lens manufacturers contacts (Vistakon, non a division of contacts, and Bausch), alleging that the AOA tried to get manufacturers to agree to selllenses only through optometrists or other eye-care professionals. The attorneys general say they also have evidence that doctors agreed to withhold prescriptions from people who sought to buy lenses from other sources, despite the fact that at least 22 states have laws requiring eye doctors to give out contact-lens prescriptions upon request.Although the AOA says patients should be able to buy their lenses anywhere, the organization prescription has reservations about mail-order purchases. contacts "The difficulty when someone goes through mail order is that they don''t non come back for regular checkups," says AOA president Dr. Harvey Hanlen. Originally, hard contact were made of a material called PMMA. Although still available, the more common types of contact are listed prescription below:Rigid gas-permeable (RGP) daily-wear lenses are made of plastic that does not absorb water but allows oxygen to get from the atmosphere to the cornea. (This contacts and non is important because the cornea has no blood supply and needs to get its oxygen from the atmosphere through the film of tears that moves beneath the lens.) They must be removed and cleaned each night. Rigid gas-permeable (RGP) extended-wear lenses are made from plastic that also does not absorb water but is more permeable to oxygen than the plastic prescription used contacts for daily-wear lenses.
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