I’ve worn contact lenses for ten years, and I’ve always found it easier to take the contacts out than put them in. A lot of fellow contact lens wearers seem to think differently. So let’s see what dopers think.
For me, it depended. I wore contacts for about 15 years, with a very mild dry eye condition. As the dry eye got a little worse, it got harder and harder to take the contacts out at the end of the day. Ultimately, they became uncomfortable after just a few hours, so I just stopped using them. Anyway, I voted harder to take out, because even early on if I took a nap or wore them too long, I’d have to use drops before trying to peel them off my eyeballs.
Depends on lots of things. Right now, the contacts I wear are very soft. It makes them really hard to get a grip on, on top of that, when I do get them out, they tend to fold in half in my fingers and they’re hard to unfold. These contacts are easier to put in.
Come to think of it, I’ll say most contacts are easier to put in, there’s a lot less eye touching involved in putting them in. Don’t get me wrong, after 17 some odd years of doing this, I really don’t have any problem sticking my fingers in my eyes anymore, but the less I have to do it the better. Especially, those days when you try three or four times and can’t get a grip on it only to realize you already took that one out.
I wear 30-day contact lenses (Air Optix Night & Day, which I highly recommend). They’re very soft, and putting them in is easy enough; just rub them with lens fluid a couple of times, add a drop, and put them in. Taking them out is much easier, though; just the gentlest of pinches is needed to remove one, and I usually remove both simultaneously. Maybe it helps that I only remove them to discard them.
I find the two about equal. I voted for taking contacts out being easier because there’s no messing it up. Putting them in is pretty easy, but every once in a while you get a fleck of something underneath or the lens folds back over your finger and you have to do it over.
I didn’t vote, as I find them about equal. (Although I rarely wear contacts these days. Glasses are just so much less a PITA.)
I wore contacts from the age of about 10, until last year so about 28 years. The last couple of years they were uncomfortable and dry (and I hate wearing specs, if they get knocked off you’re vulnerable) so I had the laser treatment.
I’d read about corrective surgery for a couple decades, and the latest machines take out most of the human error so I went in with some confidence. Since that procedure I’ve been pretty happy about seeing stuff in HD. I still get surprised every day, as I’m not used to having vision better than 20/20. Now my vision is as good as that which fighter pilots have.
Neither one is at all difficult for me - I’ve got gas permeable lenses and 25 years of experience. When I was new with them, at the age of 13, I had a whole heaping lot of trouble touching my eye (well, not even, just touching the lens and touching the lens to my eyeball) so putting them in was really hard. But it was completely an emotional oogy thing, so I was able to get over it.
Taking them out involves pulling the corner of my eyelids and blinking. Even on my first day, that was easy.
I don’t know how y’all with soft lenses do it. shudder I canna touch my eyeball! :eek:
I only tried them once. Getting them in was easy.
That evening, I could only get ONE of them out! The other simply wouldn’t go. I had to drive home with one eye closed! It took a long, long (careful!) time for me finally to prize the other one out.
Meanwhile, the whole damn day, I felt like sand was in my eyes.
Never again. Four-Eyes for me.
I hate putting them in. I have no problem touching my eye. It’s the fact that it seems like there’s always a miniscule shred of dust somewhere on one or both lenses that necessitates putting them in, feeling sore, taking it out, rinsing it off, putting it in, nope still sore, taking it out, repeat. It takes minutes to put them in and 10 seconds to take them out.
Yeah, I think this is what makes it harder for me. I’ve been wearing contacts for ten years now, so I can pop them right in, but it took me a long time to get to where I am. There were any number of things (blinking at the wrong time, not cleaning them thoroughly enough, still having gunk in my eyes from sleep, contact lens folding over, contact lens not suctioning properly when I got it in my eye) that would make it not stay in right, and then I’d have to start the process over again. There’s much less that can go wrong when I tried to take them out: really only placing my finger a few millimeters off or blinking at the wrong time, and that only slows the process by about half a second. It is much easier to readjust my finger positioning than have to catch the lens falling out of my eye, re-wet it, re-position it on my finger, pull my eyelid up, and go at it again.
I also have slight astigmatism. It’s slight enough that I can still wear contacts, but it may mean I don’t get as good of a suction.
I think it’s absolutely easier to put them in than take them out. Out of the case, onto the finger. Make sure it’s not inside out. Put a drop of solution in the bowl, put it in the eye.
Taking them out is just slightly more difficult for me - it’s like they don’t really want to come out some nights.
I wore contacts for almost thirty years, from hard to gas permeable to soft. I found it easier to put them in 90% of the time but it was really 50-50.
PRK (NOT Lasik!) made it 0-0. (From 8.50/7.75 with moderate astig to just under 20/25…)
Since I had saggy eyelid surgery I have to use a little suction cup to remove gas perm contacts. I can’t pull the corner to pop them out. I don’t know if this is the way it is, or they’re not completely healed after five months.
Voted the second, based on my current situation, but the opposite has been true in the past.
Current soft contacts, Acuvue 2 or something:
In - put on tip of finger, aim for cornea. Sometimes it misses and I have to try again. Also, you must worry if lens in inverted or not, because it’s is uncomfortable when backwards.
Out - put fingers on either side of cornea, pinch.
Rigid gas permeable:
In - Similar to soft, but it’s rigid so you can’t invert it. The main problem is if you drop them, they are very hard to see and expensive.
Out - Put finger on outer corner of eyelid, pull outward and it pops out. But, infrequently but not rarely, my eye would get inflamed and then the lens would be stuck on my sclera, as the cornea is too inflamed to seat the lens, and lenses are much harder to remove when off it. I had to wait ~30 mins for the swelling to go down.
For me, it’s about the same, but a little bit more time consuming to put them in. One has to be careful that they’re well-rinsed, not inside-out.
I’ve been wearing contacts since I was 19, and I’m now 66. For about 5 years, I wore continuous wear lenses, but I decided to revert to regular ones. I’m very lucky in that my eyes still water easily. Right now, my eyes are tearing up just because I’m thinking about eyes.
If I had been younger when the surgery came around, I would have done it. But now, I’d have to wear glasses to read anyway after surgery.
Not an excuse in itself - I had the choice of “perfect correction” or monovision (where they correct your strong eye for distance and your weak eye for close vision). I tried monovision in contacts a couple of times and hated it, so I went for the “best possible” correction knowing it would still leave me needing readers.
So at an age when I’d need cheaters anyway, I have nearly perfect vision for everything three feet away or more. Needing to scatter readers around the house is trivial compared to having to wear contacts, or, as would have been likely by now, being unable to wear contacts any longer and going back to the coke-bottle glasses I had as a kid. Worth it in every way, even though I had it fairly late (mid-40s).
I last wore contacts some 20 years ago, so I’m hardly the best one to ask about this, but I voted that it’s harder to put them in than to take them out.
Mostly, as some have said, the oogy feeling of poking yourself in the eye. Plus the hassle of making sure everything is clean and set up right, getting a good mirror with good lighting, not dropping them and having to start all over cleaning them, and all that good stuff.
Taking them out is easy by comparison, just reach up and pluck them out. Hopefully have somewhere good to put them until they go back in, as well!
Is it weird that I still sometimes dream about putting in my contact lenses backwards, or something? 'cuz I do, once in a while, 20 years later. Dreams is strange!
My RGP lenses are bastards to get out sometimes. The process I was told to use is described here: RGP Lens Removal - YouTube
It takes me several tries sometimes, but no more than maybe 5 or 6 at worst.
Much easier to take out, many times they fall out on their own! Been wearing soft contacts since 1973. (Yes, they were out back then you youngsters).
But back in the day, if you did fall asleep wearing them, you would have to peel the remains off your eyes which felt like ripping your eyeballs out with an icecream scoop!:eek: