Choosing The Perfect Contact Lenses: How To Make The Right Decision

Years ago contact lenses used to be simple little hard glass lenses that you placed on your eyeballs. While these lenses provided excellent vision correction, you felt them under your eyelids each time you blinked. They would take weeks to get used to and they had an unfortunate tendency to fall out of your eyes.
Contact lens technology has changed a great deal in recent times, though. Not only do you have contact lenses made of extremely soft and pliable material, you have lenses that you don’t even need to clean and store each night – they are disposable. Many people even have a great deal of fun with the way colored contact lenses help them change their eye color. Let’s take a closer look at the world of contact lenses. You should be in a better position to choose the perfect contact lens for your needs when you are through.

Soft Contacts

Most people use soft contact lenses to correct farsightedness, nearsightedness and astigmatism. Recent advances in contact lens technology have even created multifocal lenses for older people who are unable to focus on objects close by because of a common condition called presbyopia.
Soft lenses are as popular as they are because they are very comfortable. The ultra-soft material that they are made of ensures this. The fact that the wetness of the eyes keeps these lenses in close and snug contact with the eyeballs means that these contacts are suitable for an active lifestyle.  Mostly, they don’t even come off when you swim.
Soft contact lenses come in three varieties.

1. Daily wear lenses are the cheapest. You can wear them all day each day and then take them off at night to soak in a chemical disinfectant. With proper care, you can usually use a pair from six months to a year. These are popular because they are very inexpensive.
2. Some people find the need to take their lenses off each night to be very annoying. These people tend to experiment with extended wear lenses. These can be worn for up to a week between disinfections. Extended wear lenses often don’t work as advertised. Leaving an object in the eyes for such extended periods of time often results in eye infections.
3. Disposable lenses are contacts that you throw away after a little while. They come in different varieties – daily, monthly and weekly. Disposable lenses are great idea for two reasons. To begin, they don’t lose clarity the way other lenses do.  Additionally, if you use daily disposable lenses, you don’t even have to bother with disinfecting your lenses each night.

Contact Lenses for Special Vision Conditions

1. The multifocal lenses mentioned above are lenses that offer different sorts of vision correction in one lens. These are for the elderly who suffer from presbyopia.
2. Hybrid contact lenses are exactly what the name suggests – they are both hard and soft. If you like the clarity that hard lenses offer but you have a problem with the way they have a hard time sticking to your eyes, hybrid lenses are a good alternative. These are hard lenses surrounded by soft skirting. These lenses are also a good idea for people who have a condition called keratoconus – an irregularly shaped cornea.

Cosmetic Lenses

Excluding crazy Halloween contacts, there are basically two kinds of cosmetic lenses – Plano color contacts for simple visual appeal and prescription color contacts that combine an ability to correct a vision problem with cosmetic appeal.
It’s always a good idea to buy contact lenses from qualified and authorized dealers such as Next Day Lenses – even if you wish to buy Plano color contacts.
Contact lenses are medical devices. It’s very important to obtain professional service.
Elizabeth Garvey works at an optometrist. She enjoys sharing her insights and tips online.