Patients with keratoconus are offered various specialty contact lenses to correct their vision. At Yealy Eye Care, two specific lenses are used — scleral lenses and Rose K2 Lenses. While scleral lenses are widely used by various practices, often patients will select Rose K2 lenses for their cost and effectiveness.
Dr. Ryan Yealy shares some of his expertise with Rose K2 Lenses.
When patients wear Rose K2, what’s their experience like? Reports show that one out of five patients uses a soft contact lens as well as a Rose K2 lens to achieve visual comfort.
If patients abide by what we say when wearing their Rose K2 lenses, where they wear them for a duration of 4 to 6 weeks like we asked, we don’t have too many problems with them. The trick to wearing Rose K2 lenses is the transition period of 4 to 6 weeks. Few are not happy with them but generally overall patients enjoy wearing Rose K2 lenses..
Rose K2 Lenses are a custom-made hard contact lens, but they don’t vault over the cornea like scleral lenses. So, how do they work?
Rose K2 lenses are smaller diameter lens that works with the abnormalities of the cornea, but the lenses still rest on the cornea versus the scleral lenses that vault over the cornea completely.
Some practices report that hard lenses can lead to corneal scarring. While that may be true for standard gas permeable, is it true that Rose K2 Lenses work differently?
Yes, they are far safer than a standard RGB. Now, corneal scarring depends on how progressive is a patient’s case of keratoconus. Keratoconus is a disease of progressive thinning, so the thinner the cornea gets, the more likely it’s gonna scar.
How do you monitor diseases like keratoconus with your specialty contact lens patients?
Evaluations. Yearly evaluations usually are performed to ensure the contact lenses are working well, and the health of their cornea. If the cornea gets too thin, I’ll send them to a corneal specialist. For example, a patient will need to see a corneal specialist for a potential penetrating keratoplasty or a corneal transplant, when their cornea that has thinned to around 120 microns, which is at its thinnest or really incredibly thin.
Do you ever recommend people to go through the corneal crosslinking procedure?
Yes.
Do you find that when patients come to you for specialty contact lens fittings, they go through multiple fittings? Or, is it usually pretty quick? Or is it simply case by case?
It’s case by case. Some patients will get fitted on their first try, while others are a little bit more difficult and need multiple fittings. The scleral lenses are typically an easier fit than the Rose K2 lenses.
Do insurance cover any of the costs with these specialty lenses?
Coverage depends on the insurance. It’s not like a broad stroke where you can say all of them are covered by insurance. A patient’s coverage depends on what their insurance says.
We use both scleral contact lenses and Rose K2 lenses to help all our patients achieve visual clarity. The range of affordability and guidance allows for greater flexibility for our patients, and people appreciate that we offer these options to choose from.
