If you’ve come across the description “toric contact lenses” while researching your vision correction options, you’ve probably wondered what it means, and how they’re different from traditional contact lenses. And you wouldn’t be alone – in fact, many of the people that these lenses are designed to help don’t even know they exist! Soft toric contact lenses are one of the greatest breakthroughs in vision correction in the past decade, bringing clear vision to those who couldn’t wear contacts before.

Who Can Wear Toric Contacts?

Toric lenses are designed to help people who have astigmatism, commonly known as nearsightedness. The condition is caused by an irregular shape of the cornea, which is the lens that allows the eye to focus. With astigmatism, the cornea is shaped less like a sphere and more like a football or an egg, with an elongated curve, leading to problems like distorted vision, eyestrain, squinting and double vision. Because of the irregular shape of the cornea, regular spherical contacts can’t be worn, so for a long time these people weren’t able to wear them at all.

Made from the same material as regular contacts, toric contact lenses need to be fitted by an eye doctor. Once that’s been done, however, wearers have most of the same options as people who wear spherical lenses. Colored lenses, like DuraSoft FreshLook colored contacts, are available in toric lenses, as are bifocal lenses, disposable and frequent-replacement styles. The fitting of toric lenses and the lenses themselves cost a bit more than traditional lenses, but for the convenience of having a disposable contact or colored contact lens, many people find the cost to be worth it.

To make sure that they don’t slip out of place, toric lenses are specially designed to fit the astigmatic eye, and are weighted to keep them in place. Many users find they have a strong preference for rigid gas permeable (RGP) lenses over soft toric contacts because they retain the shape of the cornea better and provide slighter crisper vision. The difference is very small, though, and most people still opt for soft toric contacts because they’re more comfortable, and disposable make care much easier.

If you have astigmatism, ask your eye care professional to tell you more about DuraSoft soft toric contact lenses or any of the other products designed for the type of vision correction you need. And don’t hesitate to find out about colored contacts, too – there’s a whole world of fun and fashionable vision correction now available that near-sighted people weren’t able to explore before now, so why not take advantage of it?