Edge lift with scleral lenses can be hard to see. Even after seeing thousands of scleral lens patients, it is still difficult for me to spot it sometimes.
Edge lift occurs when the edge of the scleral lens is too flat, resulting in the edge lifting off the eye. An analogy would be like putting a paper plate onto a basketball.
The edge of the plate will lift off because the shape does not match the contours of the basketball. In this video, you can see that there is a small shadow at the edge of the scleral lens in the temporal area. This very small shadow is hard to identify, but we were lucky to catch it today.
With the OCT image, you can see the edge of the lens is slightly lifted off of the conjunctiva, which was resulting in the shadow that we see in the slit lamp. When edge lift is present, patients often complain that their lens is uncomfortable.
If the edge lift is excessive you will see the lens actually move when they blink and the patient will state discomfort. You might also see a bubble come into the lens if the edge lift is severe enough. Luckily, edge lift is very easy to fix.
By simple steeping the edge in the affected area, you can resolve this issue. Contact the lab to help, they will know what to do!
