This article was originally published in a sponsored newsletter.

Let’s start with this premise: Nearly every astigmatic patient is a candidate for contact lens wear. While nothing is 100%, there are still astigmatic patients who are being told that they are not a candidate for contact lenses. This may have started long before the contact lens technology available today was around, but toric contact lens technology has grown exponentially for a large range of parameters. For those reasons, proactive eyecare practitioners have an opportunity to grow this population.

1. Innovation  There are many new materials and modalities that provide improved ocular health and convenience. Your patients need to be aware of this and are in your exam chair to hear about their options. By offering patients an option that they may not have heard about in the past, forward-thinking practitioners will tap into this growing market of contact lens wearers.
   
   
2. Stability and Comfort  There is another group of astigmatic patients who have failed with contact lenses in the past because they were not seeing consistently, or they just were not comfortable throughout the day due to a variety of issues. The environment in which contact lens wearers live and work often does not help us achieve success. Not only are many patients indoor with forced air most of the day, but many of our patients spend their workdays in front of a computer. They may have felt like they were not seeing as well as with their glasses and may not have thought about trying them again…unless they are reintroduced to them. For example, try the explanation, “There are new and improved contact lens options that are now an option for someone with your prescription. These lenses can often improve the stability of your vision and your end-of-day comfort.”

It is important to set patient expectations with everything that we are prescribing, and this is no different. Discuss how astigmatism-correcting contact lenses have come a long way in their development and now come in a wider range of prescription power ranges. This enables the eyecare provider to ensure that their lenses are orientated perfectly for them to achieve their best vision. Utilize the phoropter to demonstrate how their astigmatism can result in variable vision unless we have specific lenses that are customized for their eyes and their vision. Consider a proactive approach with contact lenses and inform patients of those options that could potentially satisfy their visual and comfort requirements.