Gaudi FreeForm Scleral Lenses

Here at the California Keratoconus Center, we can restore clear vision for most Keratoconus (KC) patients without surgery with our cKlear Method™. Patients walk out of our offices seeing clearly for the first time in years, if not their whole life. Instead of invasive corneal surgery, the cKlear Method uses extremely advanced diagnostic instruments to learn the shape and visual properties of each eye so that we can design specialty contact lenses that can often correct a patient’s vision to 20/20. Now, a new kind of contact lens, called a FreeForm Scleral Lens — and in particular the Gaudi QS FreeForm Lens and the Gaudi Legend FreeForm Lens — have given us the ability to design lenses for more complex Keratoconus cases than ever before, resulting in crystal clear vision and unmatched comfort.

What is a FreeForm Scleral Lens?

Before you can understand a FreeForm lens, you need to understand a bit about the shape of an eye.

Most of us think that an eye is spherical like a ball. That’s more or less true for most normal eyes, which means that a smooth and spherical contact lens will fit very well. But the eyes of people with Keratoconus, in addition to having bumps and bulges, are usually shaped just a bit like a football such that they’re a little longer or differently shaped in one direction (for example, side to side) than another (up and down). Optometrists and Ophthalmologists call the imaginary lines in these directions “meridians.”

If you can imagine putting that same spherical contact lens on a football-shaped eye, you begin to understand why contact lenses are often so hard to fit for Keratoconus patients. For a Keratoconus Contact Lens to fit well on an eye with KC, it needs to be designed very precisely to match every curve of the eye down to the micron, and in particular, the curve of the sclera, including all of its bumps and bulges.

To make things even more interesting (or confusing), an eye has a meridian in every direction, and the eye can be shaped differently on either side of any meridian.

Scleral Lenses give us a lot of flexibility in designing precise and comfortable contact lenses for eyes of certain shapes, but some shapes are so complex, with so many unusual meridians, that something better is needed.

And that’s what FreeForm Scleral Contact lenses are for: they give us the flexibility to design lenses along more meridians than conventional Scleral contact lenses, which means we can solve even more complex vision problems, often including High Order Aberrations, than ever before.

Read about FreeForm Lenses in more detail.

Gaudi FreeForm Lenses

Gaudi Scleral Lenses are available in two different varieties, each with its strengths for different kinds of patients. One of Gaudi’s strengths is that data from the Eaglet-Eye profilometer — an instrument used as part of the cKlear Method — can be fed into the Gaudi software and used to design its lenses.

One of the strengths of the Gaudi FreeForm lenses is that they can be used to resolve High Order Aberrations (HOAs), the visual anomalies frequently seen by those with Keratoconus. These HOAs cause ghosting, double vision, glare halos and other visual problems which are more apparent at night. Sometimes, these HOAs can make it unsafe for a person to drive at night, making the Gaudi FreeForm lenses especially helpful and necessary.

But which Gaudi FreeForm lens is right for you?

Gaudi QS Lens

The “Gaudi QS” is a FreeForm base lens that we can design to solve complex vision issues for our patients. The lens allows us to adjust the central vault, limbal vault, haptic angle, edge alignment and lens thicknesses and tapers in 8 different sections of the lens. That means that instead of designing lenses along two meridians, we can design lenses along eight meridians, which is a huge benefit for patients who need it.

Even though Gaudi QS lens is the base lens between Gaudi’s FreeForm lenses, it’s still a very advanced lens. Not only can it be designed to resolve most Keratoconus-related vision issues, but it can also be designed to be multi-focal. So, if you currently wear Keratoconus contact lenses and also wear reading glasses, or if you wear Scleral Lenses plus glasses with progressive lenses, you may be able to get rid of your glasses, too. In other words, your Gaudi QS FreeForm lenses can be designed as progressive lenses, allowing you to see either near or far without having to fumble with glasses.

Gaudi Legend Lens

The Gaudi “Legend” is a FreeForm lens that can be used in even more complex cases. The Legend has all of the features of the QS with additional adjustment features such as decentering the optic zone, tilted optic zone, edge vaults, channels, prism, and more. For example, if you have shunts surgically implanted into your eyes to help treat your Glaucoma, the Gaudi Legend lens is probably the right one for you.

Gaudi FreeForm Lenses at the California Keratoconus Center

The California Keratoconus Center (CKC) is the one of the leading Keratoconus treatment centers in California, and is so well respected by general Optometrists nationwide, they refer patients from all over the country. Dr. Barry Leonard, the Clinical Director of the CKC, works closely with the scientists and researchers at Gaudi to help them develop their software, methods, design techniques and training materials. For the very best in non-surgical Keratoconus treatment with Gaudi Freeform Scleral Lenses, make an appointment with the California Keratoconus Center today.