What Are the Benefits of Gas Permeable Contact Lenses?

Gas permeable (GP), or rigid gas permeable (RGP) contact lenses are less common than soft contact lenses and are similar to the original "hard" contact lenses, which were the only type of lens available until 1971. Gas Permeable lenses are made of polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) mixed with silicone. Hard lenses were made entirely of PMMA; the addition of silicone makes GP lenses more flexible than the earlier lenses.

Comfort

• Although less flexible than soft contact lenses, GP lenses are significantly more malleable than hard lenses, making them more comfortable for the user. Unlike soft lenses, they are made to measure, fitting the shape of the user's eyes exactly.

Oxygen

• GP lenses allow more oxygen to reach the surface of the eye than most types of soft lenses, which makes for healthier and more comfortable eyes.

Vision

• GP lenses offer clearer vision than soft lenses: their rigidity allows them to hold their shape during blinking better than soft lenses, which gives the user a crisper image immediately after the blink. This rigidity also allows GPs to be better at correcting astigmatism and other refractive errors than soft lenses. Since GP lenses can be made in bifocal or multifocal formats, they can also help treat presbyopia: a complaint more common among older people, where near vision is blurred while distance vision remains unaffected. Due to their inflexible shape, GP lenses are also the only option for people with keratoconus, which warps the cornea into a cone-like shape, and they are more effective than soft lenses in treating high myopic vision errors that require strong correction.

Durability

• Being sturdier than soft lenses, GP contact lenses are easier to clean and last longer. This increased longevity can reduce cost over the long term since the lenses will need less frequent replacement than soft lenses.