Eye Care | Optical Services

We often hear the saying that our eyes are the windows to our soul, but did you know they are also the windows to our health?

The eye is one of the most important organs in the body and is responsible for one of your most vital senses. Several thousand times a day, your eyes move and focus on images near and far, providing you with a highly detailed chain of three-dimensional pictures of the world around you. Your sight has helped you accumulate a lifetime of memories in a visual form, making it a gift that is unlike any other. When all is well with our vision, we take it for granted. But when our vision is affected, we suddenly realize how precious sight is. That’s where Visionary Eye Doctors can help!

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Our Experience

Our experienced board-certified Optometrists and Ophthalmologists work diligently with each patient to assess eye health and recommend a plan for your clearest and most comfortable vision. Whether you come to us looking for a pair of frames to complement your style, or you’re interested in laser vision correction, or you think you may have cataracts, you’re in great hands. Our Optometrists work closely with our Ophthalmologists to meet the needs of each patient. It’s important to have regular eye examinations, regardless of age, visual ability or physical health. They will also assess how your eyes work together and evaluate your eye health, which will give insight into your overall health.

When we think of health, having our eyes checked most likely is not the first thing that comes to mind, but they are more intertwined than you think.

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Our Optometrists

Babak Hosseini, OD
Board-Certified Optometrist

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Lorena Riveros, OD
Board-Certified Optometrist

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Maliha Saeed, OD
Board-Certified Optometrist

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Why have regular eye exams?

Eye diseases and abnormalities can be effectively treated if detected early, so it is important to make sure you visit us annually for your eye exam.

After your exam, our Optometrist will be happy to discuss their findings, talk over any issues or concerns you may have and answer questions about available treatments. Should you need contacts or glasses, your doctor and our opticians will discuss what will work best with your lifestyle needs. We have three optical shops that offer a wide selection of frames for glasses, including many name brands and a variety of disposable and specialty contact lenses.

Screening with Optomap

Annual comprehensive eye exams should be a part of your preventive health care. State-of-the-art Optomap provides a clear digital picture of the retina (the very back of your eye) without the need for dilating eye drops. This noninvasive and painless imaging procedure takes just a few minutes to perform, and is an important tool in maintaining the overall health of your eyes.

There are many good reasons for annual comprehensive eye exams. Vision loss related to diabetes or age-related macular degeneration can be minimized with early detection, and 80% of blindness is treatable or preventable. Glaucoma, a leading cause of blindness, affects approximately 2.2 million Americans – but half of those affected are unaware they have the disease. A comprehensive eye exam with Optomap imaging detects the early stages of this disease, and can aid in the early detection of melanoma and hypertension.

Vision Disorders – We can help!

Myopia (Nearsightedness)

Nearsighted individuals typically have problems seeing well at a distance and are forced to wear glasses or contact lenses. The nearsighted eye is usually longer than a normal eye, and its cornea may also be steeper. Therefore, when light passes through the cornea and lens, it is focused in front of the retina. This will make distant images appear blurred.

Eye glasses, contact lenses and there are several refractive surgery solutions available to correct nearly all levels of nearsightedness.

Hyperopia (Farsightedness)

Farsighted individuals typically develop problems reading up close before the age of 40. The farsighted eye is usually slightly shorter than a normal eye and may have a flatter cornea. Thus, the light of distant objects focuses behind the retina unless the natural lens can compensate fully. Near objects require even greater focusing power to be seen clearly and therefore, blur more easily.

LASIK, Refractive Lens Exchange and Contact lenses are a few of the options available to correct farsightedness.

Astigmatism

Asymmetric steepening of the cornea or natural lens causes light to be focused unevenly, which is the main optical problem in astigmatism. To individuals with uncorrected astigmatism, images may look blurry or shadowed. Astigmatism can accompany any form of refractive error and is very common.

Astigmatism can be corrected with glasses, contact lenses, corneal relaxing incisions, laser vision correction, and special implant lenses.

Keratoconus

Men and women with keratoconus typically present with myopia (nearsightedness) and astigmatism. Some are surprised to learn that they have keratoconus which results in a thinning of the corneal tissue. This thinning, combined with the normal pressure from within the eye, causes the cornea to bulge, changing from round to cone-shaped and distorting vision.

At Visionary Eye Doctors, we are fortunate to have our optometrist, Babak Hosseini, OD, a contact lens fitting specialist for Keratoconus patients and our fellowship-trained cornea specialist, Dr. J. Alberto Martinez for the optimal treatment of this condition.

Do You Have Keratoconus? Symptoms of keratoconus may include:

Vision changes such as double vision in just one eye
Distortion of objects both near and far
Halos or streaking around lights
Difficulty driving due to blurry vision

Keratoconus causes a steepening of the corneal curve that happens gradually. As the cornea changes shape from round to more cone-like, vision deteriorates. In most cases, the changes in the cornea due to keratoconus begin in the teen years and stabilize at about 30 years of age. Patients are almost always left highly nearsighted with astigmatism.

The cause of keratoconus is unclear, although it is believed to be hereditary and environmental factors like allergens can worsen the condition. The changes from keratoconus may progress quickly or gradually; they may also stop altogether or continue over decades. It is not uncommon for keratoconus to present first in only one eye, however both eyes will eventually be affected.

Diagnosing keratoconus involves measuring the shape of the cornea, usually with corneal topography, which captures an image of the cornea in seconds.

Keratoconus Treatment Options

When glasses alone don’t do the trick, keratoconus is often treated with specialty contact lenses by Dr. Hosseini to improve your vision. Additionally, Dr. Martinez can help keratoconus patients to have clearer vision through the use of Intacs® inserts or corneal collagen crosslinking (CXL) treatments to strengthen your cornea. Ultimately, as the condition progresses, it may be necessary for a corneal transplant surgery using the latest techniques.

Presbyopia

Presbyopia is a condition that typically becomes noticeable for most people around age 45. In children and young adults, the lens inside the eye can easily focus on distant and near objects. With age, the lens loses its ability to focus adequately.

Although presbyopia is not completely understood, it is thought that the lens and its supporting structures lose the ability to make the lens longer during close vision effort. To compensate, affected individuals usually find that holding reading material further away makes the image clearer. Ultimately, aids such as reading glasses are typically needed by the mid-forties.

Besides glasses, presbyopia can be dealt with in a number of ways. Options include: monovision and multifocal contact lenses, monovision laser vision correction, and new presbyopia correcting implant lenses.

Contact Lens Exams

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After a comprehensive eye and vision evaluation, our optometrists will discuss the variety of contact lens options with you to select the type that best fits your vision needs and lifestyle. Contact lenses need to be changed daily, weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly, depending on what type of lens you select.

In most cases, you’ll have the opportunity to try lenses on the same day as your exam. You can even go home with a few samples before making a final decision.

Offering all of the latest and greatest technologies, our Doctors experience high levels of success fitting even the most difficult prescriptions. Contact lens technologies for dry eyes, for astigmatism, for keratoconus and for clear vision without glasses at distance or near (bifocal lenses) have seen tremendous improvements in the past few years and are available at our practice.

We carry a wide variety of contact lenses for every need:

Bifocal or multifocal lenses
Colored or special-effect contacts
Daily disposable lenses
Extended wear soft lenses
Toric lenses for astigmatism
Rigid, gas permeable lenses
Scleral lenses
Lenses for Dry Eye
Specialty lenses designed specifically for keratoconus

Patients are referred to Dr. Babak Hosseini for specialty lenses from eye care professionals throughout Maryland, DC, Virginia and other states.

Solutions for Hard to Fit Contacts

Wearing contacts is not impossible if you suffer from one of the above conditions. You do need to meet with an eye care professional, however, and get prescribed contact lenses that are tailored to deal with your specific vision condition.

Gas permeable lenses are a good solution for patients who suffer from GPC or Keratoconus. A GP lens will limit protein deposits from accumulating which will reduce GPC symptoms. It is also effective in containing corneal bulging and relieving pressure on the tissue for a Keratoconus sufferer.

Toric lenses are useful for correcting astigmatism. Since the lens needs to align with the bulge it is correcting, toric lenses must not rotate in order to fit on the eye. They are typically custom made to correct a specific astigmatism. For that reason, this type of lens takes longer to make and costs more than a traditional contact lens.

Bifocal and multifocal lenses can help remedy presbyopia. Monovision lenses are another option for presbyopia. This type of lenses can have one fitted for distance vision and the other for seeing close objects.

Medicated eye drops can be an effective solution for dealing with dry eyes. They will lubricate eyes enough to make contact lenses more bearable, although a punctual occlusion also must be done to plug the ducts in some extreme cases. GPC symptoms can also be lessened through medicated eye drops. They flush out protein deposits and reduce inflammation.

Is the contact lens evaluation fee a separate fee from the comprehensive eye exam fee?

Contact lenses are medical devices that may have certain health implications if not prescribed correctly. Your Doctor must invest additional time and expertise to determine which contact lenses are in a patient’s best vision and health interest and, as you might imagine, there are additional fees for this service.

Hard to Fit Contacts

The one characteristic that sets Visionary Eye Doctors, specifically, Dr. Babak Hosseini, a Contact Lens Specialist apart from other eye care practitioners is that he works with the challenge of prescribing the most difficult and hard to fit cases with our premium contact lens therapy service.

Patients are referred to Dr. Babak Hosseini for specialty lenses from eye care professionals throughout Maryland, DC, Virginia and other states.

Contact lenses are not an easy solution for every person suffering with vision problems. Some eye conditions make wearing contacts a difficult proposition. However, it does not rule out wearing contact lenses altogether. It just means patients need to discuss options with their eye care provider and obtain specialized hard to fit contacts for their specific vision problems.

Reasons for Hard to Fit Contacts

Finding contact lenses that fit and wearing contact lenses in general can be made more challenging when these conditions affect your eyes:

Astigmatism

Astigmatism develops when the front of the eye curves into a bulge or oval shape. It causes blurred vision and can be difficult to correct because regular contacts cannot account for the bulging.

Dry Eyes

When eyes become excessively dry, it leads to irritation, burning, redness and blurred vision. Contact lenses can exacerbate these conditions by making it feel like a foreign object is stuck in your eye.

GPC

This form of conjunctivitis is caused by inflammation on the inner surface of the eyelid. Protein buildup on contact lenses can make this condition worse.

Keratoconus

This is an uncommon condition that causes major discomfort when wearing contacts. Keratoconus happens when the cornea becomes thinner and allows the eye to bulge forward. The bulge forms into a cone shape.

Presbyopia

Eyes tend to have a tougher time focusing on close objects as they age. This condition is known as presbyopia. It typically affects people aged 40 or older.

Contact Lens Insertion and Removal Video

Scleral Lenses

How To Insert Scleral Lenses

There are many ways to insert scleral lenses. We recommend you pick the method that works best for you. Always wash hands with mild soap and dry well with a lint-free towel before handling lenses.

Place lens on insertion tool OR stabilize lens on fingers placed in the tripod method (see photos)
Fill bowl of lens to the top with non-preserved sterile saline such as PurilLens Plus
- You can find Purilens Plus either at Visionary Optical, Bed Bath & Beyond, or Amazon.

Lean forward and look down. Face should be parallel to the floor. Sometimes it’s helpful to place a mirror flat on the counter as you insert the lens.
With the finger of one hand, hold upper lid by placing one finger on the base of the lashes and pin the lid to the brow bone.
Using the opposite hand, with palm facing up, place the inserter between thumb and index finger. Pull the lower lid down with middle finger, holding the eye wide open.
Gently place lens on eye by sliding lens inside lower lid and applying directly to eye. Remove inserter from lens by squeezing the inserter.

TIP 1. To avoid mixing up lenses, begin with the same eye each time.
TIP 2. To avoid bubbles, fill lens completely with nonpreserved sterile saline. Bubbles may cause discomfort and produce irregular vision.
TIP 3. To avoid spilling saline solution, center the contact lens in the middle of the inserter.
TIP 4. Lid control is important. Release the eye lid when the lens is fully in place and the inserter is out of the eye.
TIP 5. Keep both eyes open to help with lens insertion.

INSERTION VIDEO WATCH BELOW:

How To Remove Scleral Lenses

Wet the remover with sterile saline.
Hold lower lid down, position remover at a 45° angle. Place
remover on the lower 1/3 of the scleral lens.
Apply slight pressure to the inserter. Inserter should stick to the lens.
Lift lens away from eye with a slight upward motion.
Remove lens from remover with a slight twisting motion.

TIP 1. It’s easier to remove the lens if you are sitting down.
TIP 2. Remove lens from the bottom of the lens, not the center.
TIP 3. When removing the lens from the tool, use a slight twisting motion instead of pulling the lens straight off.

REMOVAL VIDEO WATCH BELOW:

For More Video’s and further information on insertion and removal please visit Scleral Lens Education Society website below

https://www.sclerallens.org/how-use-scleral-lenses

What To Expect

The SynergEyes VS^TM scleral contact lenses offer consistently clear vision throughout the day with all-day comfort.

Expect a brief period of adaptation to become fully accustomed to the lenses. Your eye care professional will explain expectations and wear time information so that you may enjoy unparalleled vision and comfort with SynergEyes VS.

Top Comfort Tips

Fill lens completely with non-preserved saline prior to insertion.
If lens becomes uncomfortable during the day, remove, clean, re-wet and re-insert.
If eyes feel dry during the day, refer to your eye care professional for a lubricating drop recommendation.
Avoid rubbing eyes during the day.

*Avoid using oil-based cosmetics as they may permanently damage the surface of your lenses.

How To Clean Your Lenses

Clean, rinse and disinfect your lenses daily. Cleaning and rinsing lenses is necessary to remove mucus and film from the lens surface. Disinfection is necessary to destroy harmful germs and bacteria. Disinfected lenses should remain in a closed case until ready to wear. Repeat disinfection every 24 hours as recommended on the solution packaging. Completely replace solution in lens case with fresh solution daily. Never top off solution in lens case. Replace lens case at regular intervals as recommended by your eye care professional.

Place lens bowl-side up in the palm of your hand using a daily cleaner approved for gas permeable lenses.

With the pad of your finger, gently rub the lens in a circular motion against your palm. Be sure to thoroughly clean the front and back of the lens and rinse well with saline. Never use tap water to rinse lenses.

Remove, clean, rinse, and disinfect lenses according to recommendations prescribed by your eye care professional. The use of additional lens care products does not substitute for lens disinfection.

Your eye care professional may recommend a lubricating or rewetting solution which can be used to wet lenses while they are being worn to improve comfort.

The best solution for deep cleaning is a hydrogen peroxide system such as Clear Care or Clear Care Plus that you need to soak overnight for a minimum of 6 hours.

How to use CLEAR CARE^®

Just follow these simple steps and you’ll be good to go.

Just follow these simple steps and you’ll be good to go.

Wash. rinse and dry. your hands.
Place. lenses in. baskets and. rinse for 5. seconds. with solution.
Fill. the case to. the fill line. with the. solution.
Put. the case and. lid. together. and tighten.
Soak. overnight. or for at. least 6. HOURS.
Rinse with Purilens saline before inserting into eyes
Enjoy your lenses.

RED CAP ALERT! That red cap means you should never put CLEAR CARE^® or CLEAR CARE^® PLUS Solution directly in or around your eyes.

Reasons for Hard to Fit Contacts

Finding contact lenses that fit and wearing contact lenses in general can be made more challenging when these conditions affect your eyes:

Keratoconus

This is an uncommon condition that causes major discomfort when wearing contacts. Keratoconus happens when the cornea becomes thinner and allows the eye to bulge forward. The bulge forms into a cone shape.

Astigmatism

Astigmatism develops when the front of the eye curves into a bulge or oval shape. It causes blurred vision and can be difficult to correct because regular contacts cannot account for the bulging.

Dry Eyes

When eyes become excessively dry, it leads to irritation, burning, redness and blurred vision. Contact lenses can exacerbate these conditions by making it feel like a foreign object is stuck in your eye.

GPC

This form of conjunctivitis is caused by inflammation on the inner surface of the eyelid. Protein buildup on contact lenses can make this condition worse.

Presbyopia

Eyes tend to have a tougher time focusing on close objects as they age. This condition is known as presbyopia. It typically affects people aged 40 or older.

Eyeglasses and Frame Selection

Choosing the Right Frames

Glasses say so much about your personality and personal style. At Visionary Eye Doctors we are happy to work with you in selecting frames that complement your features. Our experienced optometry professionals work closely with you to select the proper frames to fit your budget as well as your cosmetic, lifestyle, and vision needs. While working with our experienced staff enables you to select the appropriate frames, we invite you to learn more about which frame styles complement various face shapes.

Select Your Frames:

Square Face

A square face is often characterized by a strong jaw line, a broad forehead, and a wide chin and cheekbones. The width and length of the face are close to being equal. Frames should be selected to make the face look longer and to soften the square angles of the face. Choose frames that are slightly curved (like an oval shape) and that have more horizontal than vertical real estate.

Oval Face

Oblong Face

Round Face

Heart Shaped Face (or Base-up Triangle)

Base-down Triangle Face

Diamond Face

This is a general guide and is only intended for reference. Our experienced and trained staff will assist you in selecting frames what work best for your lifestyle.

Our eyeglass brands include:

When Was Your Last Eye Exam?

Whether your last eye examination was last year or in the last decade, our highly trained team of expert eye doctors at Visionary Eye Doctors can provide you with a comprehensive eye examination to help you stay (or get!) on track with your visual health. Call us today at 301.896.0890, or click here to schedule your eye exam online.

Request an Appointment

Hear what our patients have to say!

Click Here To Learn More

Eye Care | Optical Services

Our Experience

Our Optometrists

Why have regular eye exams?

Screening with Optomap

Vision Disorders – We can help!

Contact Lens Exams

Solutions for Hard to Fit Contacts

Is the contact lens evaluation fee a separate fee from the comprehensive eye exam fee?

Hard to Fit Contacts

Reasons for Hard to Fit Contacts

Contact Lens Insertion and Removal Video

Scleral Lenses

How To Insert Scleral Lenses

How To Remove Scleral Lenses

For More Video’s and further information on insertion and removal please visit Scleral Lens Education Society website below

What To Expect

Top Comfort Tips

How To Clean Your Lenses

The best solution for deep cleaning is a hydrogen peroxide system such as Clear Care or Clear Care Plus that you need to soak overnight for a minimum of 6 hours.

How to use CLEAR CARE®

Reasons for Hard to Fit Contacts

Eyeglasses and Frame Selection

Choosing the Right Frames

Select Your Frames:

Our eyeglass brands include:

When Was Your Last Eye Exam?

Hear what our patients have to say!

The Visionary Eye Doctors Locations:

How to use CLEAR CARE^®