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FROM GLASSES, DAY LENSES
AND LASER EYE SURGERY
Night lenses are contact lenses that you wear while sleeping. They are specialy designed to harmlessly, and naturally, re-shape the outer cell layer of your eye. Your eye naturally renews these cells every night into the lens to mould it into the correct shape. When you wake, you can enjoy the benefits of perfect vision* all day, without needing glasses or daytime contact lenses.
The process is called Orthokeratology, so medically these are known as ‘Ortho-K’ lenses. Myopia (short sight) makes the eye more like an oval rugby ball, not a round ball. So the light focuses in the wrong place, causing blur.
Every night your cornea (outer layer of your eyeball) naturally sheds it’s outer layer of cells. While you sleep the new cells form into the mould of your custom fit night lens, creating a ‘round’ eye that focuses perfectly. Remove the lenses in the morning to clear sight.
No need for glasses, daytime lenses or laser eye surgery.
The process is harmless and reverses every night – simply repeat every night as part of your routine just as you would with daytime lenses.
Dr Euan Speirits is a Scottish surgeon with a specialist interest in Orthopaedics, Sports Medicine and Biomechanical Research. In his spare time, racing under the name “Rossi”, he is an Elite 4X and Downhill Mountain Bike Racer (Scottish Mountain Biking ‘Hero of the Year’ 2017 no less!)
I’ve been wearing them for 3-4 years. I was put onto them by Scott Brown, a fellow MTB who is an optician. I was wearing monthly lenses at the time. The problem with MTB and monthlies is they dry out and when mud hits them it compromises them. I was getting tired of how frequently they dried out and how uncomfortable that was. Daily lenses dried out quicker, so they were no better. At work when I operated on people my eyes were getting very dry in theatre. Scott told me about night lenses, which I’d never heard of, which was odd given my profession and also the amount of sports I did. I had entertained the idea of laser eye surgery, but was worried about the cost and permanence of it, so never thought it merited doing. Night lenses sounded like a pretty good resolution without permanence.
It has genuinely revolutionised it. It means I can go for a day of competition with zero distraction of eye dry and have a normal life with no need to consider using contacts or wondering whether they will dry out. Recreationally I do a lot of paddleboarding and don’t have to worry about the option of seeing or falling in and losing my contact lens. They have completely normalised life for me.
I couldn’t recommend them enough. Everyone at some point wearing daytime lenses has had them move in their eye and felt the ‘grate’. The knowledge that you don’t have that in high performance sport is a huge difference. No difference between what you can see and what you interpret. No compromise. Your vision is your own. I’m surprised more people don’t wear them, but that’s mainly because so few people have heard of them yet.
Catriona Morrison is a multi world champion at Duathlon (bike and running), bronze medal at the World’s at long distance Triathlon (3.8k swim, 180km bike, 42km run) and has won various Ironman events around the world. Catriona retired in 2015 and has since put her incredible energy into youth projects.
Overall, yes. Any sport where you sweat, you rub your face and your eyes. If you’re a contact lens wearer you risk dislodging the lens and so you think about that. Sports glasses feel sweaty and can steam or smear, so you think about them too. To put a top performance together you need to dot all the ‘I’s and cross all the ‘T’s. It would have been a very different story if I had all that background worry about goggles coming off during the swim or dislodging a lens during a race. All I do now is put one lens in and take one lens out. All done. Nothing in my eyes for the rest of the day and the race. Why wouldn’t you want to control the uncontrollable? So many things are uncontrollable in a race – why not control it?
Sport is a part of life. Night lenses, for me, revolutionised my life as they revolutionised my sport experience.
Perhaps the only way I’d go back if I wasn’t being physically active in my life. But then I’ll always be active. I got them because of the volume of physical activity I did and the ease of having a life without having to deal with the hassles of glasses or contact lenses. I briefly came off them twice. The interesting thing was that I mindful of the wastage of day lenses. Night lenses are 1 set of lenses per year versus throwing away a pair every day. For anyone thinking about night lenses who are more attuned to sustainability and environment, this might also be a positive plus point for night lenses. Less waste.
McKenna Opticians is a local and independently owned opticians.
Coleraine Rd, Maghera, BT46 5BN