Contacts....?

Question

Im 15 years old, and I have been wearing glasses since i was 10. I want to get contacts now, and my parents have agreed(finally!). But I have some questions... What different types are there, like monthly, weekly, daily. Does the price vary, because i was thinking of getting the monthly ones. How much do contacts usually cost, because i just want to try them out for the summer. Also, i wasnt thinking of getting coloured ones, i would like clear. Since my glasses are prescripted, then my contacts would have to be too, so how much would that cost?

Merci : )

Answer 1

I have been wearing contacts for 10 years. The best ones I have found are the acuvue oasis. They are not colored, but they come in the standard contact like blue tint. It is to help you keep in contact with the contact and find it if you drop it, etc. There are daily contacts, contacts to wear day and night (while you sleep and i dont recommend), not sure about weekly, monthly, and yearly. I don't recommend the yearly because you have only one pair and they cost as much as getting a supply of monthly contacts. If you tear or lose them, you are starting back at square one. I have been wearing the monthly which work great, and I even wear them a little longer - month in a half to two. You can tell when to throw them out and put a new pair in. THey won't fit your eyes right and they will irritate them. Usually insurance doesnt cover both contacts and glasses, but contacts are normally about $60-70 per box of 6 month supply. I would use insurance for your glasses. Those cost alot more.

Answer 2

Hello,

I don't pretend to be absolutely up to date, but I have been wearing contact lenses since I was 23, now I'm 60.

The main types of contact lenses are:  hard ones and soft ones.

Hard ones are the 'oldest' type,  - when I first started wearing them in 1970 there was only the hard type.  The main problem with them was, that putting a piece of plastic across the fronts of your eyes prevents the oxygen from the air 'getting in' to the front of the clear corneas.

As time has gone by, new types of plastic have been invented which are described as 'gas permeable.'  What is meant by this, is that oxygen can now work its way through the plastic.  This has made hard contact lenses more comfortable to wear, and has allowed them to be made larger (so they cover more of the clear cornea).

When you blink whilst wearing a hard contact lens, the eyelid squeezes just that little bit harder on the front of the eye, and this squashes the cornea just a bit.  It has long been known that this effect can stop 'short sight' from getting worse.  More recently, a new type of hard lens called an ortho-K lens, has been devised which uses this squeezing effect on purpose...  you only wear the ortho-K lens at night and the 'squeezing' effect improves your vision during the next day, because the eye takes some hours to 'spring back' into its normal shape.

I would advise avoiding ortho-K lenses for the time being because:  (1) the best technology is new and you would be better with a longer-established choice of lens  (i.e. not be a 'guinea-pig'), (2) ortho-K lenses are very expensive.

'Hard' contact lenses have advantages if your eyes have a moderate or high degree of  irregularity of the corneas, called 'astigmatism,' (pronounced ay- STIGG'' - mat - tizumm).  This is because they flatten this irregularity a bit.

However, you can't wear hard contact lenses to play 'contact sports' like football, rugby, judo, boxing etc because if the front of your eye is brushed, they fall out relatively easily.

The other type are 'soft' contact lenses, which are squishy and flexible and cover up the whole cornea.  They stick on much better, and can be used for contact sports.  However, they do not correct 'astigmatism' at all, if you have it, (you could tell by looking at your spectacles prescription, - - is there a reference to CYL or 'Cylinder'?)   The main requirement for successful soft contact lens wear, is that you must have a good flow of tears, I mean that you must not suffer from dry eyes.  This is because the soft lenses must be kept wet in order to work properly.  You should have a good flow of tears at your age, (I am not referring to when you cry because you are upset).

Soft contact lenses are 'absorbing' like blotting-paper or tissue paper, so you cannot use any eye-drop medicines in your eyes at the same time, (the medicine would be absorbed into the substance of the lens).  Similarly, any coloured drops you put into your eyes would discolour the lens.  Eye make-up can occasionally be a problem. This 'absorbing'  feature also makes the lens slighly more prone to harbouring a particularly nasty germ called an 'amoeba' (pronounced a - MEE'' - burr), so hygiene is a lot more critical when handling soft lenses.

Soft lenses are definitely easier to wear than hard ('gas permeable') lenses, because they are softer and gentler on the fronts of the eyes.  You can get to wear either type of lens all day, from getting up to going to bed, but you get to 15-hour wear quicker with soft lenses.

Your idea about daily-weekly-monthly is to do with the aspect of cleaning the lenses.  Every day when you wear them, they get dirty, just like your clothes do.  So you have to soak them overnight in a special cleaning fluid.  For hard gas-permeable lenses, you can also physically rub them with a special detergent.

Disposable lenses get round this by making each set of lenses 'throw-away'' after a given length of time.  So cleaning them is not so important, - - you just throw them away and wear new.  Throw-away lenses tend just to be the 'soft' kind, - - I don't think you can get throw-away gas-permeable lenses.

On the one side you have the regular costs of the cleaning fluid, - - but only one set of lenses to buy, - -  and on the other hand you have hardly any cleaning fluid costs, but the cost of having new replacement lenses regularly.  You pays your money and takes your choice.  Throwaway lenses are maybe a bit safer, because any germs or chemicals which get absorbed into them, get thrown-away every so often.

I think another thing to consider, is how good you want your vision to be in contact lenses.  Surprisingly enough, it is not so easy to achieve perfect vision of 20/20 (or as we would say in the UK, 6/6) with contact lenses as it is with spectacles.  You can normally get to within one line (on the vision chart)  of 20/20 though.  This is good enough so long as you do not want to pilot an aeroplane, get a heavy goods vehicle license,  or be a train driver.

Spectacles and contact lenses don't mix very easily.  You really need to 'commit' to one or the other.  This is because of the 'squeezing' function that I have mentioned before, - -  your spectacles 'prescription' actually changes after you have worn contact lenses,  especially hard ones, because the fronts of your eyes need several hours to spring back into the shape they were before.

What will happen if you go and try out a pair of lenses, is that the Optician will check your suitability.  The main problem with contact lenses is if you already suffer with allergic eye problems or hay-fever, contact lenses may make that problem worse.  

He/she will put a pair of 'approximate' ones in for you, and let you go walkabout and try them for a couple of hours.  I suggest you ask to try soft lenses one day, and then ask to come back and try hard gas-permeable lenses the next day.   They really are different.  See which ones you like best, and which you want to commit to.  Ask about ''astigmatism."   I am afraid that the eyes are associated with a big set of special technical words, so it is especially easy for you be 'blinded with science,'- - - but the Optician should be quite prepared to explain technical terms in plain english, it is not rocket science.

I have been very happy with a single set of hard, gas-permeable lenses for 37 years.  I did have a pair of soft lenses for boxing and playing rugby, but I didn't get on with them because my eyes were too dry, (an older-age problem).

Also I fly a plane, and I couldn't get 20/20 vision with soft lenses, I can with hard ones.  I just clean them every night, it's no big deal.  I change them every 2 years.  I don't insure them, I bought a spare pair which I take away on holidays.

I can't tell you how much you should pay.  Soft lenses are 'bigger business' than hard gas-permeable ones, and they will probably be the ones the Optician wants to sell you, - - yes, I am afraid commercial considerations apply as well as 'ethical, professional' considerations.  It is more profitable to sell 'repeating' throw-away lenses, for every day even, and this can be bogus-ly justified as genuine clinical concern.

There are unscrupulous practioners in every walk of life.  I suggest you go to an Optician that one of your friends has been to, and actually recommends, as reputable and honest.

I hope this is of some help.

Best wishes,

Belliger (retired uk doctor)