At Charlotte Contact Lens Institute, you spend 100% of your time directly with Dr. Ariel Cerenzie.  From the time you walk in the door to the time you leave, you will interact with the doctor, and no one else.  Typically, 60-90 minutes are set aside for a new patient exam, which gives ample time to ensure you are receiving the best possible care and getting in depth answers to any questions you have.  While a traditional optometry office may schedule a doctor to see patients every 15-20 minutes, at Charlotte Contact Lens Institute there’s enough time to truly understand each patient’s needs, and determine the best treatment option for their unique situation.  In addition, after they leave, patients have 24/7 access to text/call Dr. Cerenzie, which is clearly unique from a traditional patient experience.

Don’t just take our word for it…see our reviews here.

Dr. Cerenzie’s goal is to help patients who need her, regardless of where they live.  It is extremely common for patients to come from hours away to see her, and in certain cases patients may even fly into Charlotte to see Dr. Cerenzie.  Dr. Cerenzie has recently seen patients from West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia. 

Previously, while working in traditional Optometry offices Dr. Cerenzie always felt rushed when seeing patients who needed more customized care and advanced services and treatments.  Dr. Cerenzie has always been most passionate about scleral lenses, myopia management, and other specialty contact lens services, and Charlotte Contact Lens Institute allows Dr. Cerenzie to exclusively see the type of patients that she can help the most.

Patients often tell Dr. Cerenzie that it’s evident that she truly cares about her patients.  Dr. Cerenzie enjoys getting to know patients outside of caring for just their eyeballs – what they do for fun, work, getting to know their family, etc.  Knowing these things also help Dr. Cerenzie customize patient’s visual needs to their life, which can be very important in finding the best option for their needs and lifestyle. 

Here’s the best part…because Charlotte Contact Lens Institute offers in-depth exams and one-on-one time with the doctor, Dr. Cerenzie is able to customize the exam for each patient, and isn’t rushing from patient to patient. 

Dr. Cerenzie herself has been diagnosed with keratoconus, and so she understands firsthand some of the challenges that her patients face, but also firsthand understands what a difference the right lens can make in someone’s life.  It is common for patients to cry HAPPY tears in her office when the patient sees that they have options for improving their vision, regardless of their condition or history with traditional optometry offices.  There are few things more precious to people than their vision, and Dr. Cerenzie is honored to be able to allow patients to see to the best of their ability.

Dr. Ariel Cerenzie received her Doctor of Optometry degree from the University of Houston and completed a Cornea and Contact Lens residency at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Her passion for specialty contact lenses and myopia management led her to establish the Charlotte Contact Lens Institute, a practice dedicated to the needs of specialty contact lens care, anterior segment disease management, and myopia control. Driven by a commitment to advancing the field, she is a frequent speaker and author on topics related to specialty contact lenses and myopia management. Dr. Cerenzie is a fellow of the Scleral Lens Education Society and the American Academy of Optometry and serves as the secretary for the Piedmont Optometric Society. Dr. Cerenzie enjoys spending quality time with her husband, James, and two daughters, Sofie and Adelyn. Her favorite hobbies include mountain biking, hiking, and traveling.

• Keratoconus
• Myopia Management / Myopia Control
• Pediatric contact lenses
• Dry Eye Syndrome
• Corneal transplants
• Radial Keratectomy
• Post-LASIK ectasia
• High astigmatism
• High myopia/hyperopia
• Double vision
• Migraines/light sensitivity
• Trauma
• Scarred corneas
• Sjogren’s Syndrome
• Graft vs. Host Disease
• Steven’s Johnson Syndrome

One of the more common treatment options are Scleral Lenses, and Charlotte Contact Lens Institute specializes in all types of Scleral Lenses, including impression mold, freeform, and conventional Scleral Lenses.

See below for a list of some of the more common treatement options available at our office.

• Scleral Lenses, including impression mold, freeform, and conventional Scleral Lenses
• Overnight contact lenses (for both children and adults), AKA Orthokeratology, OK lens, or ortho-k
• GP (Gas Permeable) lenses
• Yearly supplies of more traditional daily/monthly contact lenses
• Prosthetic contact lenses
• Bandage contact lenses
• Hybrids contact lenses
• Custom soft contact lenses
• Custom tinted contact lenses

Dr. Cerenzie partners with the top contact lens manufacturers in the country in order to offer the best customized specialty care for each patient.  Specific manufactures who Dr. Cerenzie works with includes, but are not limited to the following:

• EyePrintPro scleral contact lenses
• BostonSight scleral contact lenses
• Wave Contact Lenses (Night orthokeratology lens, VST orthokeratology lens, Wave scleral lens)
• Blanchard (OneFitMed scleral contact lenses)
• Valley Contax (Custom Stable Elite, Gaudi FreeForm Sclerals)
• Paragon (CRT orthokeratology lenses)
• Bausch & Lomb (ZenLens scleral lens, Novakone custom soft lens, Revive custom soft lens)
• Synergeyes (ScanFitPro, Synergeyes VS)
• Orion prosthetic lenses (BioColors, bioMed therapeutic lenses)
• Adventures in Color prosthetic lenses

Typically, the initial comprehensive exam is 60 to 90 minutes of 1-on-1 time with the doctor.  Included is dilation, a glasses prescription, a contact lens prescription, contact lens fitting, dry eye imaging, corneal topography, scleral topography, and an eye pressure test.

We do not accept vision or medical insurance. Insurance plan reimbursements result in limited time that a doctor can spend with you. In addition, the materials and technology that is “on formulary” frequently limits doctors from prescribing the best solution for patients before jumping through insurance politics and hurdles.  

Dr. Cerenzie will work one-on-one with patients to provide thorough, personalized vision solutions. No wait times. No seeing the doctor for 5-10 minutes. No feeling like you are “just a number”.  

At Charlotte Contact Lens Institute, patients feel that they are heard, that they have the doctor’s full, undivided attention, and that the doctor is not concerned with getting to the next patient as soon as possible. Instead, Dr. Cerenzie will meet one-on-one with you, to determine the best solution for your goals at each visit, with no wait times, and certainly no rushing. 

Yes! We will provide you with the resources to use your “out-of-network” benefits.  Dr. Cerenzie will provide you with signed paperwork and a stamped envelope to mail off to your insurance company, so your insurance company can they reimburse you directly.

Our favorite device is the Pentacam AXL Wave. Only a dozen or so practitioners in the country have this advanced technology!

For patients with corneal irregularities like keratoconus, corneal transplants, and other types of post-surgical corneas, it measures the shape and thickness of the cornea, helps monitor for disease progression, and determines candidacy for various specialty contact lens options. In addition, the Pentacam provides a topography of the white part of the eye to customize scleral contact lens fitting to the highest degree.

For patients requiring myopia management, the Pentacam measures the axial length of the eye, which is an important measure to monitor the efficacy of the selected treatment option. 

Each of these functions allows for an extremely customized contact lens that was made just for you, based on hundreds of thousands of data points on the eye.

When opening the office, Dr. Cerenzie decided she preferred to focus on her passions and skill set. For your optical needs, Dr. Cerenzie will be sure to connect you with a local provider that best fits your style and visual needs for eyewear.  

Dr. Cerenzie will schedule an initial consultation with you to determine your vision goals and to assess your condition. This initial consultation will be $275 for both myopia management and specialty contact lenses. The consultation payment can be applied towards your plan once we determined how to best meet your goals. 

See services below for more details on payment structure. 

With the advanced technology offered at Charlotte Contact Lens Institute, it is likely that the comfort and vision of scleral lenses may be improved depending on what type of lens you were prescribed.  

Most scleral lenses are designed based on a general “fit set”. A fit set has 9-15 lenses. One of these lenses is placed on the eye and the doctor adjusts curves on the lens. 

With scleral-based topography (the Pentacam AXL Wave), a scleral lens is designed based on hundreds of thousands of data points. This results in superior comfort and the best vision a scleral contact lens can offer. These are called scan-based scleral lenses.  

For some patients, a custom molded lens may be necessary. This is called the EyePrintPro. With this technology, a mold impression is created of your eye. From that mold, a custom contact lens is made. EyePrintPro is a great solution for patients with advanced conditions.  

There are many potential ways to answer this question, but first, modern day technology has offered many improvements to contact lens design that weren’t possible even a few years ago.  Charlotte Contact Lens Institute possesses equipment such as the Pentacam AXL Wave which only a dozen or so offices in the entire country have.  In addition, Charlotte Contact Lens Institute dedicates as much possible time and energy to ensuring patient success and happiness because they allow the time to truly understand the situation and all available options.  Dr. Cerenzie is a true specialist in what she does, and is a nationally renowned speaker and trainer on the topic of specialty control lenses, myopia management, and in other services which she provides to her patients.

After your treatment plan is established, Dr. Cerenzie will determine what type of solution is best for you. The payments are arranged as either one package for the year or a monthly fee, both options including advanced diagnostics and unlimited follow ups for the first year. The payment for contact lenses is required before ordering and subsequent payments are between $100 to $289 per month. Subsequent year payments are reduced based on an established treatment plan. 

Specialty contact lenses are typically around $600/lens for the actual contact lens, but there’s a range, and some contact lenses such as EyePrintPro lenses can cost much more than $600/lens.