Rick Gadd.

SAUK RAPIDS, Minn.—Essilor of America is launching a service to provide custom-made specialty lens designs for patients who have low vision or high prescriptions. The lenses are being produced at the Essilor’s Specialty Lens (SL) Lab located within its Custom Eyes lab here. The SL Lab is modeled on the specials lab that Essilor operates in Ligny-en-Barrois, France. The SL Lab produced lenses for patients who have complex refractive errors including high sphere power, high cylinder power, special parameters, extreme powers and extreme prisms, and strong ametropia, according to Essilor.

The lenses also help address vision challenges for people with medical issues such as lazy eye, cataracts, and other rare eye conditions, Essilor said.

“It’s our commitment to ensure everyone who needs better vision has access to it through Essilor of America,” commented Rick Gadd, incoming president of Essilor of America. “Our lab network can now, for the first time ever, help people who need power ranges -100.00D to +90.00D see the world around them. It’s just one more way our lab network delivers on our mission of improving lives by improving sight.”

The ordering process is completely customized to the eyecare professional and his or her patient, Essilor said. ECPs can place their specialty lens order through their Essilor lab, and a lab customer service representative can determine if the customized lens requires additional measurements. Specialty Lenses are available in a variety of materials and power ranges from -40.00 D to +50.00 D depending on the material, and SL Lab can accommodate from -100.00D to +90.00D working through Essilor’s specials lab in France.

The Specialty Lens Lab recently provided a -30.00D cylinder lens for Ed Matthews, who suffers from severe pellucid marginal degeneration. This condition “warps” his cornea, causing him to have a high degree of cornea distortion and astigmatism. SL Lab surfaced the lenses and Custom Eyes edged them to fit into the frame.

“SL Lab made the lens by gluing two lenses together in order to achieve such a high cylinder as they were not able to grind a 30.00 D cylinder lens. For our part, we had never attempted 30D either, but that is what we strive to do—the most challenging work,” said Essilor’s regional operations director Henryk Dymus.