A Hayes optometrist took some time to speak about a relatively unknown procedure patients can choose as an alternative to daily contact lens wear. Peter Wilcox, OD, an optometrist and owner of Wilcox Eye Center, serves as a contact lens design and fabrication research consultant for a specialty lens manufacturer.

His lens designs frequently solve the vision needs for people with complicated prescriptions as well as with scarred or irregular corneas.

Wilcox provides a procedure, called corneal molding, where the patient sleeps with uniquely-designed corneal molds that are removed in the morning, allowing the patient to see all day without contacts or glasses.

According to Wilcox, corneal molding not only corrects vision in most patients, but the process also significantly slows and usually stops the progression of nearsightedness. Also called myopia, a growing number of children suffer from nearsightedness.

"So, there is a better answer for the question many parents ask t...