Contact Lenses Specialist

What are the advantages of contact lenses over glasses?

If you don’t have 20/20 vision, and you’re not interested in undergoing laser eye surgery, contact lenses may provide the next best thing. Compared with glasses, contact lenses provide clearer, more natural vision.

You may be aware when wearing glasses that you’re looking at the world through glasses. You’re far less likely to experience something similar with contacts. Contacts sit on your eyes and move with your eyes wherever you look, providing a wider field of vision, including peripheral vision.

By contrast, when wearing glasses, you may find your vision is clear when you’re looking through the center of your lenses, but gets less clear when you look up, down, or to the side, and everything outside the view of your lenses is blurry.

When glasses are your lifeline to clear vision, a lot can go wrong. If it’s rainy or foggy outside, keeping your glasses free of water or condensation is a challenge. You also have to worry about your glasses breaking, falling off, or getting in the way, which is especially frustrating if you like to play sports or spend time in the great outdoors.

You may prefer the way you look without glasses but still need corrective lenses. Contact lenses can solve this dilemma.

What are the different kinds of contact lenses?

Most contact lenses are soft lenses. They’re made of a thin, flexible plastic that comfortably fits on the front surface of your eye. They’re effective for treating the same refractive errors as glasses, including nearsightedness, farsightedness, and astigmatism (blurred vision).

Depending on your preferences, you can choose soft contact lenses that you wear and replace on various schedules, including:

• Daily contacts, which you wear during the day for 10-12 hours and remove and clean at night, and replace with a new pair every 2-4 weeks
• Daily disposables, which you discard each night, and are especially good for people with allergies
• Extended-wear contacts, which you wear at night and remove once a week to clean

There are also hard contact lenses, made of a durable rigid plastic. If you have astigmatism, which means you have irregularly shaped eyes, you may find hard contact lenses easier to wear. If you have eye allergies, you may find hard lenses easier to keep clean of allergens than soft lenses.

You may be concerned that your refractive problems are too complex to be corrected with contacts, but with evolving technology, there are likely options for you. For example, contact lenses can be bifocal, trifocal, or progressive, just like eyeglasses.

How do I take care of my eyes when I wear contact lenses?

If you haven’t worn contact lenses, it’s understandable to worry about the risk of discomfort, irritation, and infection. Thankfully, as long as you follow good hygiene and maintenance habits, you can avoid complications while enjoying the many vision benefits of contact lenses. These habits include:

• Washing your hands before you put in, take out, and handle your contacts
• Removing your contacts before you go to sleep, even if they’re designed to be worn at night
• Always using fresh lens solution that’s designed for the type of contacts you have
• Regularly rinse your contact lens case with solution and replace it every three months
• Replace your contacts according to the recommended schedule

Book an appointment at Great Neck Opticians online or over the phone today.