Charlotte Contact Lens Institute

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Charlotte Contact Lens Institute

Charlotte Contact Lens Institute is an independent practice providing custom & personalized care.

$Success story after refractive lens exchange!Many patients with high prescriptions look for options that offer freedom f...$

02/18/2026

Success story after refractive lens exchange!

Many patients with high prescriptions look for options that offer freedom from glasses and contacts. And for this patient, ending up back in corrective lenses was never the goal. But sometimes, even after advanced surgery, vision still needs a little extra support.

Here’s a great example of what’s possible when the right technology meets the right fit. This 53-year-old patient achieved 20/20 distance and near vision in a custom multifocal scleral lens. Special design features helped the lens stay centered and stable, leading to clear, comfortable vision all day.

A reminder that personalized care can make all the difference. 🧐

02/12/2026

Corneal scars can impair vision not only through opacity, but also by inducing irregular astigmatism. Even peripheral scars can induce significant irregular astigmatism and higher-order aberrations that limit best-corrected vision.

How scleral lenses help:
We frequently evaluate patients referred for possible penetrating keratoplasty (PK) to better understand their true visual potential. A same-day scleral lens trial often allows patients to experience their best-corrected vision—sometimes for the first time—before committing to surgical intervention. 👁️

Our approach:
• Trial fitting performed during the initial 2-hour consultation
• Patients walk around the office to experience real-world vision
• Supports shared, informed decision-making: surgical vs. non-surgical

Fitting considerations:
In many cases, fitting is relatively straightforward. However, depending on the degree of irregularity, HOA-corrected optics may be necessary to fully optimize visual quality.

Takeaway:
Before recommending surgery, giving patients the opportunity to see what’s possible can meaningfully influence outcomes, expectations, and long-term satisfaction. ✨

02/10/2026

Behind every great doctor is an even greater support team 👀✨

Meet the dream team keeping things running at CCLI and RCLI: Pia, Ian, and Hope 💪

From answering patient calls to managing emails and texts, coordinating schedules, tracking lenses, and handling all the behind-the-scenes details, they keep everything running smoothly day in and day out. Most importantly, they make sure every patient feels heard, supported, and truly taken care of — the heartbeat of our practice, assisting our doctors every step of the way.
We couldn’t do what we do without them 🩵

02/06/2026

Case Highlight: Managing Exposure Keratopathy with Scleral Lenses
38-year-old medical dosimetrist with a complex neuro-ophthalmic history, including facial nerve dysfunction, paralytic lagophthalmos, and multiple prior eyelid reconstructive procedures, presented with persistent discomfort, requiring hourly ointment use, compromising visual function.
Clinical findings
▫️ Deep stromal corneal scarring with intact epithelium
▫️ Significant irregular astigmatism
▫️ Incomplete lid closure secondary to facial paralysis
Intervention
We refit her into an 18.0 mm scleral lens to maximize coverage of the exposed ocular surface and stabilize the tear reservoir.
Outcome
✔️ All-day comfort
✔️ Clear, stable vision
✔️ Elimination of exposure-related pain
✔️ Marked reduction in reliance on ointments
Why this matters
Patients with lid abnormalities, whether from palsies, resections, entropion, or ectropion, often rely on frequent ointment use that protects the cornea but severely limits vision. Well-designed scleral lenses can serve as both a therapeutic and optical solution in these cases.
Fitting pearl
These patients often require:
• Larger diameters
• Freeform designs guided by scleral profilometry for optimal alignment due to increasing scleral irregularity away from the limbus

Sometimes the answer isn’t more drops or more surgery, it’s better coverage, better optics, and better design.

02/02/2026

Vision rehab with scleral lenses can be life changing—especially in cases like EBMD. 👁️✨

This patient came in frustrated with poor quality vision despite wearing glasses: ghosting, double vision, and smudged letters that worsened after computer or phone use and lingered all day.

Reading the TV guide from across the room? Nearly impossible.
With scleral lens trials, his vision sharpened and—most importantly—the ghosting resolved. Those are the moments that make us pause and say… wow. This is why we do what we do.

If you’ve been told your vision is “technically good” but still feels off, scleral lenses may be worth exploring. 💛

01/21/2026

Where have our doctors been lately? 👀✈️

Dr. Cipperly, Dr. Moss, and Dr. Cerenzie were recently in Las Vegas at the Global Specialty Lens Symposium, soaking up great education, reconnecting with colleagues, and getting a little nerdy!

They also had the chance to take the podium, lecturing on everything from myopia management to advanced specialty lens designs like ScanFitPro, and sharing real-world applications of cutting-edge technology, such as the Pentacam AXL Wave ( ).

We love learning, we love teaching, and we especially love bringing it all back to the clinic to make patient care even better.

01/15/2026

Honored to be recognized as a 2025 Top 10% Trailblazer by .us ✨️

This was presented by Ovitz CEO Felix Kim to Dr. Ariel Cerenzie and Dr. Heather Cipperly of the Charlotte Contact Lens Institute at GSLS on January 9, 2026.

We are proud to be at the forefront of innovation in specialty contact lenses, advancing personalized care and delivering meaningful vision outcomes for our patients 💯

01/13/2026

👁️ What you’re seeing here is called a sc******ng reflex.
During retinoscopy, a smooth, healthy cornea reflects light evenly. In keratoconus, the cornea becomes irregular — so the light reflex splits, moves unevenly, or appears to “scissor.”

This finding tells us:
• The cornea isn’t optically smooth
• Standard glasses may not fully correct vision

This video shows the classic sc******ng light reflex caused by asymmetric corneal curvature and irregular astigmatism. Retinoscopy can detect keratoconus even in early stages and has been shown to be a sensitive tool for this purpose. In one study comparing retinoscopy to tomography with the Pentacam, retinoscopy had a ~98% sensitivity for detecting keratoconus, including early disease, even when slit-lamp findings were subtle or absent (Al-Mahrouqi et al., Cornea, 2019).

Al-Mahrouqi H, Oraba SB, Al-Habsi S, et al. Retinoscopy as a screening tool for keratoconus. Cornea. 2019.

01/09/2026

We most often visualize this with scleral profilometry and occasionally with anterior segment OCT. In these OCT cross-sections, you can see how pronounced the indentations are after removing a very tight scleral lens that the patient had worn for around 10 years.

When the scleral shape is modified like this, in-office fitting becomes more challenging. A practical trick I’ve found helpful is to go smaller or larger in diameter than the original lens to avoid the affected tissue.

The OCT here shows the new lens design at first dispense. I will wait to make any changes on this lens until the patient wears the lens for a minimum of 2–3 weeks. Because of the extent of the scleral tissue’s indentation, champagne bubbles were forming during downgaze. 🫧

Though not ideal, I asked him to power through this and recommended instilling 3–4 drops of Optase Intense into the bowl of the lens prior to insertion. After 3 weeks of wear, I tightened the edges slightly, and he was good to go!

Sometimes, patience and a little extra counseling on expectations can go a long way! ✨

12/26/2025

Wishing you bright days and joyful moments this Christmas from all of us at the Charlotte Contact Lens Institute 🎄✨

12/19/2025

Scleral lenses can be a game changer for dry eye! 💧✨

These lenses protect the cornea by securing a fluid layer of preservative-free saline underneath—keeping the eye comfortably bathed in moisture all day long. This gives the ocular surface a chance to heal, improves visual stability, and provides real relief from stubborn dry eye symptoms.

Swipe to see this patient’s before and after… the results speak for themselves!

💡Expert tip: Add a few drops of a highly viscous preservative-free artificial tear into the bowl before inserting the lens for extra comfort and fluid retention. Serum tears can also be added for additional therapeutic benefit.

Let us know your experience in the comments below! 👇

12/12/2025

Typically, the main reason we consider a corneal transplant (PK) for ectatic or scarred corneas is when axial scarring reduces vision. But here’s the catch: you cannot accurately judge the visual impact of a scar without a scleral or GP lens trial.

Why?
Because what looks like visually significant scarring may actually be optical distortion from an irregular ocular surface, not the opacity itself. A scleral lens neutralizes that distortion and reveals the eye’s true visual potential.
Corneas with scars also tend to show elevated higher-order aberrations (HOAs), creating glare, halos, photophobia, and reduced optical quality. Research shows sclerals can significantly improve visual acuity and optical symptoms in these cases.¹

Patient Spotlight 🔎

This 45-year-old was referred after recovering from a fungal ulcer, likely caused by sleeping in a contact lens that had pollen trapped underneath.

At his first visit:
• BCVA in glasses: 20/100
• With a scleral lens: 20/30
• Corneal densitometry 3 months post-healing (before image): noticeably elevated

At his annual visit today (1 year later):
• 50% improvement in corneal densitometry (after image)
• BCVA in scleral: 20/20 with an over-refraction
• Comfortable, consistent visual quality with his scleral lens ✨
No transplant. No aggressive intervention.
Just healing, time, and the right optics.

¹ 𝖦𝖺𝗋𝖼í𝖺-𝖢𝖺𝗆𝗉𝗈𝗌, 𝖩. 𝖾𝗍 𝖺𝗅. (2024). 𝖨𝗆𝗉𝗋𝗈𝗏𝖾𝗆𝖾𝗇𝗍 𝗈𝖿 𝖵𝗂𝗌𝗎𝖺𝗅 𝖰𝗎𝖺𝗅𝗂𝗍𝗒 𝗂𝗇 𝖤𝗒𝖾𝗌 𝗐𝗂𝗍𝗁 𝖢𝗈𝗋𝗇𝖾𝖺𝗅 𝖮𝗉𝖺𝖼𝗂𝗍𝗒 𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝖨𝗋𝗋𝖾𝗀𝗎𝗅𝖺𝗋𝗂𝗍𝗒 𝖴𝗌𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝖬𝗂𝗇𝗂-𝖲𝖼𝗅𝖾𝗋𝖺𝗅 𝖫𝖾𝗇𝗌𝖾𝗌, 𝖱𝖾𝗏 𝖬𝖾𝗑 𝖮𝖿𝗍𝖺𝗅𝗆𝗈𝗅.

Address

5950 Fairview Road Suite 708
Charlotte, NC
28210

Telephone

+17048005230

Website

https://www.charlottecontactlens.com/

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