Eye to Eye with North Suburban Vision Consultants

Dr. Eiden Quoted in New York Times concerning “Circle Contact Lenses” a potentially dangerous fad

4th July, 2010 - Posted by Dr. S. Barry Eiden - No Comments

Dr. S. Barry Eiden was quoted today in an article printed in the Sunday New York Times discussing the issues and potential dangers of the use of “Circle Contact Lenses”.

  Here is the link:    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/04/fashion/04lenses.html?_r=1&src=me  

   These lenses are manufactured in Asia by a number of non-authorized laboratories. They produce these colored soft contact lenses and market them via the Internet primarily to young Asian girls. The lenses are not FDA approved and they are sold over the Internet without a prescription and of course without the professional fitting by a doctor. We are very concerned about this phenomenon due to the potential for an unwary young person having a serious complication with the use of these Circle Lenses which could result in permanent vision loss. The attraction is that these lenses have dark circles of color around the edges of the lenses and various colors more centrally. The result is an illusion of larger eyes. This is especially attractive to Asian eyes since eye openings in these people tends to be somewhat smaller than caucasian eyes. If these lenses were manufactured by properly authorized laboratories and professionally fit and monitored for eye health response by a doctor then there would be a place for them. However, this is not the case. There are many Youtube.com sites that have young women promoting these lenses and telling others how to order them without a prescription.

Hopefully information like that available in the New York Times article will persuade people not to order and wear these lenses. If we can help avoid one person from loosing their eyesight, then we have done good.