Do you want to free yourself from wearing glasses? Contact lenses may be the answer you are looking for. Whether you want them for sports or to rid yourself of glasses, join the millions of people who enjoy wearing contact lenses.

Today there is a large selection of contact lenses available to suit your needs. Don't worry about becoming overwhelmed. Dr. Kirshner will make a recommendation that best meets your needs, whether you just want to go without glasses or if you play sports and find glasses cumbersome. Contact lenses are available in several categories based on what they're made of and how often you need to replace them. Dr. Kirshner will tell you which ones are right for you based on your lifestyle and prescription.

Contact lenses are made of many different types of plastic, but are divided into two main groups: soft or GP (also called rigid gas permeable). Soft contacts contain from 25% to 79% water, are easy to adapt to and are quite comfortable. Rigid gas permeable contact lenses take longer to adapt to, but are more durable and more resistant to deposit buildup.

Depending on the type of contact lenses recommended,, the replacement schedule varies. GP lenses are generally replaced every couple of years, because they are made of a very durable material (prescription change would necessitate new lenses). Soft contact lenses come in a wider variety of replacement schedules - daily, biweekly, monthly and even yearly.

And don't worry. Our highly trained staff will assist you in learning how to insert and remove your contact lenses and give you all the neccessary instructions to make wearing contact lenses safe and simple.

Many people, for many different reasons, choose to wear contact lenses instead of glasses. Today there are more contact lens options than ever before. From gas-permeable to soft, for myopia to presbyopia, there is a contact lens that most likely will suit your needs. American Vision carries many brands from the leaders in contact lens manufacturing including Johnson & Johnson, Ciba Vision and Cooper Vision to name a few.

We offer complete contact lens care, prescribing most major brands of soft and rigid (gas permeable) contacts: Acuvue, Acuvue 2, Acuvue 1-Day, Acuvue Advance, Acuvue 2 Colors, Acuvue Toric, Acuvue Bifocal, Acuvue Advance for Astigmatism, Acuvue Oasys, Aquaflex, Biomedics 55, Boston RGP lenses, Cibasoft Softcolors, Durasoft 2, Durasoft 3, Extreme H2O, Focus Dailies, Focus Monthly, Focus Weekly Colors, Focus Monthly Colors, Focus Night and Day, Frequency 55, Frequency 55 Aspheric, Frequency 55 Multifocal, Frequency 55 Toric, Freshlook Colors, Freshlook Colorblends, Freshlook Radiance, Freshlook Dimensions, Hydrasoft Toric, Hydrocurve II, Hydron Z4, Hydron Z6, Hydron Mini, Menicon Z RGP, O2 Optix, Permalens, Preference Toric, Proclear Compatibles, Proclear Multifocal, Proclear Toric, Prothin RGP, SGP2, Silver 07, Soflens 38, Soflens 66 Multifocal, Soflens 66 Toric, Sunsoft Multiples, Torisoft, Vantage, Versare RGP, Vertex Toric.

Astigmatism sufferers had few options until now. Not only can you wear rigid gas-permeable lenses, but soft contact lenses are now available that will correct your astigmatism.

What is Astigmatism? Astigmatism usually occurs when the cornea is irregularly shaped, appearing more like a football than a basketball. Like a football (or a spoon), an astigmatic eye has unequal curvature in different meridians. In contrast, a basketball is a perfect sphere with equal curves in all meridians. Because the cornea is curved more in one meridian than in the other, light rays focus at different places depending on their orientation, and objects at all distances appear blurred.

Rigid Gas Permeable Lenses: As their name implies, rigid gas permeable (RGP) lenses are hard lenses. Because rigid lenses retain their shape on the cornea better than soft lenses, they tend to provide crisper vision to people who have mild astigmatism.

In cases of moderate to severe astigmatism, a standard rigid gas permeable contact lens may be uncomfortable or unstable on the eye because the shape of the cornea is so irregular that the contact lens doesn't center properly on the eye and moves (or "rocks") too much during blinks. In these cases, a toric RGP contact lens may be used.

Soft Toric Contacts: Toric soft lenses are a special type of soft contact lens that have different curves in different meridians to correct the astigmatism. Special weighting and/or thin zones in toric lenses keeps the proper lens meridian in front of the corresponding meridian of the eye and prevents the lens from rotating during wear.

What is Presbyopia? Presbyopic people have a reduced focus-adjusting ability, their lens loses its flexibility, making it difficult to focus on close objects. During the early and middle years of life, the crystalline lens of the eye has the ability to focus both near and distant images by getting thicker for near objects and thinner for distant objects. When this ability is lost, presbyopia results.

Years ago, people with presbyopia had only one option - to wear bifocals. Not today! We have several options that may meet your needs. Dr. Kirshner will describe your options and recommend the best one for you.

Bifocal Contacts: Bifocal lenses come in two types, translating and concentric design. Translating bifocals work a lot like bifocal eyeglasses. They have two power segments, with an obvious line of separation between the distance correction on top and the near correction below. Your pupil looks through either one or the other, depending on whether you're looking far or near. This mechanism works in bifocal contacts because the lenses stay in place even as your eye moves. Most bifocal lenses are gas-permeable (GP) rigid lenses.

Concentric ring-design bifocal contact lenses feature a prescription in the center and one or more rings of power surrounding it. If there are multiple rings, they alternate between the near and distance prescription. Typically, at least two rings are within your pupil area, but this varies as your pupil expands and contracts due to varying light. Concentric ring bifocal contact lenses can be made of either soft or rigid (GP) material.

Aspheric Multifocal Contacts: Aspheric multifocal contact lenses are similar to progressive eyeglass lenses, where the different prescriptive powers are blended across the lens. Unlike eyeglasses, however, aspheric contact lenses are simultaneous vision lenses, so your visual system must learn to select the proper prescription for the moment.

This is the only type of multifocal contact lens that can be described as "progressive." It's also concentric, like the concentric ring design, and it has become the most popular type of multifocal contact lens.

Monovision: If bifocal or multifocal lenses do not work for you, another alternative is monovision. With monovision, you wear one contact lens with one power to correct distance vision and the other contact lens with one power to correct near vision. The distance vision lens is usually worn in your dominant eye.

While monovision may appear to be an unusual choice, most people actually accommodate well to it, and eventually don't even notice that each eye is responsible for a different part of their vision. Because each lens has only one power, your doctor can prescribe any of the currently available spherical lenses for monovision, including all of the current disposable lens options.