This comprehensive list of Frequently Asked Questions is designed to provide patients with a thorough understanding of OVITZ xwave aberrometers, OVITZ Added lenses, higher-order aberrations, and scleral lenses. Doctors, see your OVITZ FAQ for Doctors here.
If you have additional questions or are ready to explore OVITZ Added lenses for yourself, reach out to a trained OVITZ-Authorized Doctor or ask us a question to learn more.
Higher Order Aberrations (HOAs) are tiny, complex distortions in your vision that cannot be corrected with standard glasses or contact lenses. They often cause visual issues like halos around lights, streaking, glare, flares, or ghosting images, especially at night.
Unlike simpler issues like farsightedness, nearsightedness or astigmatism (collectively referred to as lower order aberrations), HOAs are much smaller and harder to detect without advanced technology like the OVITZ xwave aberrometer. But even though HOAs are small, their effect can be huge on your day to day life, especially in dark environments.
Correcting these aberrations can lead to clearer and more comfortable vision, and often a significantly higher quality of life.
HOAs are different from conditions like astigmatism, nearsightedness or farsightedness because they affect the quality of your vision, not just the focus. While regular lenses can help you see objects more clearly at a distance, they often fail to address problems caused by HOAs.
These aberrations distort light coming from specific angles in complex ways, leading to issues like blurry vision, glare, or ghosting even when your prescription is correct. OVITZ technology is specifically designed to target these more intricate and previously uncorrectable problems.
Every eye is unique, and Higher Order Aberrations (HOAs) can be very small and numerous in the eye. As a result, HOAs can result in a wide variety of visual anomalies. Generally, HOA symptoms include halos, glare, flares, starbursts, double vision, ghosting, and blur.
Symptoms can be more severe at night, when your pupils dilate in order to let in more light. Larger pupils can allow HOAs on the periphery of the cornea to also affect your vision. So if your visual symptoms are worse at night, you may have HOAs.
The best way to know if your visual symptoms are caused by HOAs is to be tested with the OVITZ xwave aberrometer. However, there are a few ways you can get an indication of whether HOAs are causing your vision issues.
If any of the above conditions are true for you, or if you have been told by your eye care professional that you may have higher order aberrations, find an OVITZ-Authorized Doctor Near You to know for sure.
Every eye has natural imperfections, so to some degree, everyone has Higher Order Aberrations (HOAs). Whether your HOAs affect your vision is a matter of magnitude.
Deformation of the optical components of your eye, usually including the cornea but sometimes caused by the lens or other parts of your eye, could be caused by Keratoconus, an eye condition that results in unusual shapes, bulges and varying thickness of the cornea.
Other causes of HOAs could include eye surgeries (most commonly LASIK), physical damage of the cornea, or misalignment of some of the optical components of your eye.
It’s also interesting to note that some people are more sensitive than others to the HOAs that affect their vision. So two people with the same degree or type of HOAs may have different levels of dissatisfaction with the visual anomalies they see.
An aberrometer is a specialized optometric instrument that measures tiny imperfections in your vision, known as Higher Order Aberrations (HOAs). Aberrometers work by observing the path of the light as it travels through the cornea, lens and other parts of the eye. If the patient is wearing a contact lens, then the aberrometer will also measure the path of light through the contact lens.
For many years, aberrometers have been used to observe, identify and measure HOAs, but aberrometers have never before been used to actually correct the HOAs that are found.
OVITZ xwave aberrometers are purpose-built to detect HOAs and provide actionable information to help correct or improve the vision for patients with HOAs. It is part of the world’s first and only fully integrated and automated aberrometry system to detect HOAs, to design special HOA optics for a contact lens, and then to have those optics built into the lens.
The xwave isn’t the only aberrometer available to doctors, but it is the only one that is purpose-built to diagnose and correct HOAs. And while other aberrometers prioritize other factors, such as resolution, the xwave focuses on sensitivity, which is much more important and useful for designing lenses with HOA correction.
The xwave aberrometer’s superior sensitivity allows it to detect even the smallest imperfections that other devices might miss.
It is also part of a fully integrated and automated aberrometry system to detect and correct HOAs.
Because the xwave aberrometer is purpose-built for detecting HOAs, it is easier for the doctor to use, faster, more accurate, and only delivers information necessary for correcting HOAs. This means your doctor can offer a more thorough and personalized solution to your visual challenges, making the xwave the best choice for patients with HOAs.
A corneal topographer maps the surface of the cornea, showing how steep or flat the cornea is. Some corneal topographers also show an HOA map, which shows the aberrations on the surface of the cornea, leading some eye doctors to believe they can fully diagnose HOAs.
But HOAs can also be caused by anomalies in the interior of the cornea, back of the cornea, in the lens, or other visual components of the eye.
As a result, corneal topographers miss HOAs that occur in those parts of the eye. So in order to achieve true HOA correction, your doctor must use an aberrometer.
OVITZ Added lenses are advanced contact lenses (usually scleral lenses) that incorporate OVITZ optics to specifically target and correct Higher Order Aberrations (HOAs) in your vision. OVITZ optics are most often added to scleral lenses (vs soft contact lenses or RGP lenses). Unlike most scleral lenses, which often address simpler issues like focus, OVITZ Added lenses use precise measurements from the xwave aberrometer to create a lens tailored to your eye’s unique needs.
This customization process helps to ensure that patients experience the significant reduction of the effects of HOAs, giving them the clearest vision possible, even in challenging situations like low-light conditions or night driving.
Regular scleral lenses are great at correcting basic vision problems and are often used on eyes with Keratoconus and other eye-surface conditions, such as corneal scarring due to injury or surgery. But on their own, they often fall short when used to correct HOAs.
OVITZ Added lenses go beyond standard vision correction by using proprietary leading-edge technology to address these more complex distortions.
If you’ve tried other lenses but still struggle with symptoms like halos, glare, flares, starbursts, double vision, ghosting, and blur, especially at night, then OVITZ Added lenses can offer a significant improvement, making them a superior choice for achieving the best possible visual and a return to a normal lifestyle.
OVITZ Added lenses are only possible because of the sensitivity and purpose-built design of the xwave aberrometer. The xwave can accurately determine the location and specific nature of the imperfections in a patient’s eyes.
Once the eyes have been scanned with an xwave aberrometer, the data is sent directly to OVITZ’s team of HOA experts who, with the aid of the world’s largest HOA database and proprietary AI-driven algorithms, are able to design HOA optics that are built into specific microscopic locations on a new set of contact lenses.
These tailored HOA optics work much like noise-canceling headphones, counteracting the effects of HOAs to improve visual quality. As a result, OVITZ Added lenses can provide a dramatic improvement in visual clarity and comfort, helping you see more naturally and clearly in various lighting conditions.
OVITZ Added lenses are specifically designed to correct vision issues caused by Higher Order Aberrations (HOAs), such as halos, glare, flares, starbursts, double vision, ghosting, and blur.
OVITZ HOA optics are compatible with a wide range of scleral lenses made by most major scleral lens laboratories. (Some other HOA technologies only work with one or two types of lenses.)
This flexibility allows your eye doctor to select the best base lens for your eyes and then enhance it with OVITZ technology for maximum performance. This means that no matter what your specific needs are, there’s an OVITZ Added lens that can provide the best fit and vision correction for you.
While our technology doesn’t directly treat corneal scarring, we can often help patients with mild to moderate scarring, which may have led to Higher Order Aberrations (HOAs).
For us to accurately measure HOAs, the xwave aberrometer uses a focused light (laser) that shines through the eye. Opacity, which could be caused by corneal scarring, cataracts or other issues, can make it difficult for the laser light to reach the retina.
That said, in cases of mild to moderate corneal scarring or cataracts, we can still measure and correct visual aberrations. However, if the scarring or cataracts are severe, light cannot pass through the eye effectively, and the patient would not benefit from our technology.
In such cases, even other optical corrections, like glasses, wouldn’t improve vision since light can’t reach the retina properly.
That being said, many patients with some level of corneal scarring or cataracts have experienced significant improvements with our HOA-correcting lenses. It’s important to consult with an eye care provider to determine whether the level of scarring or cataract is mild enough for HOA lenses to be effective.
We aren’t able to help patients with retinal or visual neural issues. Even if we correct optical aberrations and provide the clearest possible image to the retina, if the retina or brain can’t process the visual information, the result won’t be effective.
Most patients adapt to OVITZ Added lenses quite quickly, with many noticing a significant improvement in their vision right away. However, some people may require a short “neural adaptation” period (several days to a couple of weeks) as their eyes and brain adjust to the new visual experience.
Your doctor will guide you through this process to ensure you get the best results.
Yes, to get OVITZ Added lenses, you’ll need to visit an OVITZ-Authorized Doctor and have a specialized eye exam using the OVITZ xwave aberrometer. This advanced diagnostic tool helps your eye doctor identify the specific Higher Order Aberrations (HOAs) affecting your vision.
The xwave aberrometer is so precise, it can actually predict the effects of HOAs on a patient’s vision. As part of the exam, some OVITZ-Authorized Doctors will ask patients to draw what they see. Patients often feel very validated when the xwave produces an illustration of what the patient sees that very closely matches the patient’s drawings.
Based on these findings, your doctor can design a custom lens with OVITZ HOA optics that directly addresses these imperfections, giving you the best possible visual outcome.
The process begins with a comprehensive eye exam where your doctor will use a variety of instruments to diagnose your specific vision issues. If your doctor suspects that you have HOAs, the OVITZ wave aberrometer is used to determine whether you actually have HOAs and create an HOA map of your eye.
Your doctor will design scleral lenses for your specific eyes, with the goal of correcting your general vision as much as possible, and to ensure that the new lenses are stable on your eyes. The xwave aberrometry data is sent to OVITZ, where our team of vision scientists use the world’s largest HOA database and artificial-intelligence-powered algorithms to create HOA optics tailored to your needs.
Once the design and fit of the lenses are finalized, the HOA optics are sent to the contact lens laboratory, where a new set of OVITZ Added lenses are made.
The amount of time it takes to treat HOAs with OVITZ Added Lenses may vary from practice to practice, their schedule, your schedule, and which scleral lens is best for your situation. So we recommend contacting an OVITZ-Authorized Doctor to get consultation.
Only authorized OVITZ-Authorized Doctors and eye-care offices which have the OVITZ xwave aberrometer and have received proper training can offer OVITZ Added lenses. These doctors are specially trained to understand HOAs and how to create customized solutions that address them.
If your current eye doctor doesn’t offer OVITZ services, they may be able to refer you to a qualified OVITZ-trained specialist.
Finding an OVITZ-trained eye doctor is simple. Simply visit the Find an OVITZ-Authorized Doctor page on the OVITZ website. This makes it easy to connect with a specialist who can help you get started with OVITZ Added lenses, no matter where you live.
OVITZ has a nationwide network of eye doctors who are trained to use OVITZ technology. This means that if you move or travel frequently, you can still get access to care from any OVITZ provider across the country. Whether you need a new prescription, a replacement lens, or a check-up, the OVITZ network ensures your vision care remains consistent no matter where you are.
After you receive your OVITZ Added lenses, your doctor may schedule a follow-up appointment to ensure that the lenses are working as intended and to make any necessary adjustments. These visits help fine-tune your lenses for maximum visual outcome.
We generally recommend monitoring your higher-order aberrations (HOAs) during your regular scleral lens replacement visits, which typically occur every 1 to 2 years. Since HOAs tend to worsen with age, particularly at a faster pace in individuals with keratoconus, we recommend routinely checking for any changes. Updates to your HOA optics will be made if significant changes are detected, ensuring your lenses stay current without the need for additional visits.
If you didn’t find an answer to your question in the FAQ above, or are ready to explore OVITZ Added lenses for yourself, reach out to a trained eye care professional or ask us a question to learn more.