With sport the main motivating factor, soft lenses were the natural option for Alan Moore’s first-ever contact lenses. And with a +4.00D prescription and +1.00D add in his varifocal spectacles, multifocals were likely to be needed. Alan also intended to wear the lenses every day, making reusable lenses the most cost-effective option.
As Roop Maini, optometrist at Surrey Opticians in Coulsdon, began the initial fitting, he gave a running commentary on ‘checking the eyelids and tears’, and ‘measuring which diameter will fit the eye best’. ‘Nothing’s touching your eyes so don’t be worried,’ he added.
With each test, Maini reassured Alan with ‘That’s perfect’, ‘Well done’, ‘Looks wonderful’ and ‘You’ve done really well’. ‘Soon you’ll be able to have contact lenses with a microchip in them so you can check your emails – that’s something to look forward to!’ he joked.
In fact Maini’s first-choice lenses were monthly replacement Air Optix Aqua Multifocals and his next job was to set Alan’s expectations of the vision they might provide.
‘Don’t be disappointed if you can’t see distance and near clearly straightaway. These are trial lenses that just give us a basis to work from,’ he said, explaining that, unlike varifocal glasses, the outside of the contact lens was the distance part and the reading zone was in the middle, providing good vision for both. ‘That’s how clever it is – the brain knocks out the image you don’t want to see.’
And Maini used a memorable analogy for the benefits over glasses. ‘You don’t have to physically move your head up and down so you won’t be like a nodding dog in the back of a car! It doesn’t happen that way with contact lenses – they work automatically on the eye.’
Once the lens was applied, slit-lamp photography showed Alan how it centred on the eye. And after checking the VAs and a binocular over-refraction, Maini declared Alan’s vision to be ‘two lines better than legal to drive’ for distance and fine for reading texts on his mobile too. ‘That should change your life and hopefully you’ll be able to hit the golf ball straight onto the green as well!’
The ETIP approach
[CaptionComponent="949"]With a brief handover conversation, it was then straight out to the busy reception area for a teach session with optical assistant Suzanne Bicknell. Within an hour of arriving, Alan was back in his office with his first contact lenses, solutions and instruction booklet. All details were recorded in Bicknell’s logbook, using the ETIP approach developed by Alcon, and a follow-up call was arranged for three days later.
Bicknell gave Alan her name and contact number and encouraged him to call if he had any concerns.
As Maini explained, among the ways the practice supported new wearers through the first few days was to recommend they start using the lenses initially only during working hours so that staff were on hand to give advice, especially if they had any difficulty removing the lenses or were concerned about ‘losing a lens on the eye’.
A follow-up call after a few days was a new strategy for the practice. ‘Before, we would call patients who had varifocal glasses for the first time to see how they were getting on, but not contact lens wearers. We find the ETIP approach very useful – it reassures patients we haven’t just given them contact lenses and told them to come back in two weeks. If they have any problems we can go through these with them.’
When offering a call, staff agree with the patient an appropriate time, which may be the next day or 2-3 days ahead. ‘When you ring them they do come up with questions they didn’t ask at the time, such as whether to put the right or left lens on first, and whether they can go swimming or in a steam room with them.’
For Maini, using ETIP to make a structured call was helpful. ‘If I know what questions the support staff are asking, I know they’ve asked the right ones. It’s like a checklist for me. Our staff are trained so they know what questions to ask.’
The practice was now tracking the ‘trial to transaction’ rate, the percentage of patients who went on to direct debit sign-up or cash purchase, and which patients dropped out and why. This approach had helped staff become more proactive in recommending contact lenses, and appreciate the benefits of lens wearers coming in to the practice regularly.
Getting the knack
So how did Alan find the experience of trying contact lenses for the first time? Here are his initial impressions.
‘I was a bit apprehensive beforehand,’ says Alan. ‘Ever since I had that test that shoots a puff of air on the eye, I’ve been worried about machines touching my eyes.’ But he found Maini’s chairside manner relaxing, and the first sensation of the lens was just that it ‘felt a bit cold’.
Putting the lenses on and taking them off was also easier than Alan expected. ‘It was just getting the knack of how close to get to the eye – I didn’t want to push too hard.’
He immediately noticed the wider field of view that contact lenses gave him and was impressed by the vision and practical benefits: ‘I’ll be able to read my pedometer while I’m out running – how many calories I’m burning and how far I’ve run – and when I have a bath my glasses won’t steam up!’
Alan was happy to go with his practitioner’s advice on lens type. While he’d expressed an interest in wearing lenses overnight, friends had advised him against this so he was pleased that handling the lenses hadn’t proved to be a problem. He’d also toyed with the idea of laser surgery but decided contact lenses were a better option.
After the fitting appointment, his only questions were whether he could wear his lenses in the rain and why contact between the lens and tap water should be avoided. Otherwise he was ready to make the step to becoming a contact lens wearer.
Read more
New CL wearer from trial to transaction – part 1