The Gentle Molding™ procedure is achieved in a unique way. While you sleep these therapeutic lenses gently change the shape of your cornea (the front curvature of your eye) which improves your vision. This marvelous safe and efficacious therapeutic treatment can be improved in just one overnight wearing but may take a period of weeks or months to attain the best vision. Gentle Molding™ is safe, effective and best of all non-surgical.
One very pleased patient wrote: "What a great way to improve vision without surgery. I wore my Gentle Molding™ lenses for a week and what a difference it has made in my natural vision and correcting my near-sightedness. I can go all day without the help of glasses or contact lenses".
The most common forms of refractive errors are myopia (nearsightedness), hyperopia (farsightedness), astigmatism and presbyopia (near point blur due to age). These disorders relate to how your eye focuses light and whether or not you have good unaided vision. The word refraction is used to describe the way light is focused on the back of your eye (retina). The three factors that influence how your eye refracts (bends) rays of light are the curvature of the cornea, the power of your lens, and the length of your eye.
MyopiaThis occurs when the curvature of the cornea is too steep and/or the length of the eye is too long. As the light rays pass through the steeper central cornea, they are refracted too much and come to a point of focus in front of the retina. This creates a blurred image. People with myopia experience blurred vision at a distance but may see well up close. Normal eyesight is achieved when light is redirected to strike the retina, causing a clear image to form. The curvature of the cornea and the axial length of the eyeball are responsible for myopia. Gentle Molding™ lenses are used to correct myopia by reducing the curvature of the cornea. Myopia has been growing in incidence over the last century and is expected to involve half of the world's population by the year 2020(World Health Organization (WHO)). This has caused the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to view myopia as an epidemic. Myopia is a very real threat to cause serious sight threatening conditions (retinal detachments, glaucoma) in otherwise healthy individuals. Several recent studies (LORIC, Crayon) have shown therapeutic Gentle Molding™ designs are effective at controlling the axial length elongation of the eyeball found in progressive myopia in adolescents. The earlier a child can begin Gentle Molding™ the better.
HyperopiaThis occurs when the curvature of the cornea is too flat and/or the length of the eye is too short. As the light rays pass through the flat cornea, they are refracted too little and come to a point of focus behind the retina. This creates a blurred image which can be adjusted by trying to focus the eye much like what happens when we focus on images at close up viewing. This constant strain of trying to focus vision can result in headaches and under achievement in school and the workplace. Hyperopia can be accompanied by strabismus (crossed eye) or even amblyopia (lazy eye). Gentle Molding™ lenses are used to correct low to moderate cases of farsightedness by increasing the curvature of the cornea. With only night wear an individual suffering from farsightedness can now experience clear comfortable vision all day in their workplace or at home.
AstigmatismMany patients with hyperopia and myopia have some degree of astigmatism. This means that your cornea, rather then being completely round in shape similar to a ball, may be slightly oval and shaped more like the side view of a football. People with astigmatism experience blurred vision and sometimes distortion or tilting of images due to unequal bending of the rays of light entering their eye. In astigmatism light entering the eye focuses in multiple areas rather then in one location. High degrees of astigmatism will cause blurred vision for both far and near objects. For example, the image observed on the backside of a spoon is quite distorted and demonstrates a very high degree of astigmatism. Astigmatism often causes eyestrain and headaches as well as blurred vision. Due to recent technological advances in lens design Gentle Molding™ therapeutic lenses can correct even high degrees of astigmatism.
Eliminate Readers, Bifocals, Trifocals and MultifocalsThe loss of near point due to age is called presbyopia or "old eyes". The condition is thought to be caused in part by the loss of tensile strength of the zonules which control the lens (focus) of the eye. As the baby boomer generation ages more and more of us will find the need for additional help at close work. Gentle Molding™ therapeutic progressive mold designs add a special progressive zone to corneal re-shaping effect that can now do away with extra glasses or progressive lenses.