After ten girls in the past few months all agreeing that I look better with my glasses off, I’ve decided to switch to contacts. Unfortunately, I know next to nothing about them except that touching your eyeball is icky. Please, share your stories, and help me understand the differences betweeen the various types of lenses and how to decide which one is right for me. Thanks all!
I’ve used just about every style and bran of soft lenses available. Daily are most common, but a major pain in the ass to care for every day. Weekly wear I’ve never been able to wear more than a few days before my eye felt like I had daggers in them.
These days, if your doc says you have the option of monthly wear, do it. I have the Focus Day&Night lenses. I may never go through on my laser surgery. I wear 'em for 30 days, wear the glasses for a day, then back to lenses. No redness or discomfort whatsoever. I have 20/20 every second my eyes are open (HUGE advantage if you don’t want to fumble for the glasses at 3am). I can’t recommend them highly enough. Not sure what they cost (I’m sure a bit more) since my insurance picks up the full tab, but if you can get them, you’ll never go back.
I wore them for a while, but didn’t like them. The trick I used to get them in was to roll my eyeball back as far as I could and touch the lense to the lower part of the eye and then look down. Worked every time.
I wouldn’t know about soft lenses. (I have gas permeables.) They aren’t as comfortable as soft lenses, but they are very durable and for careful people cheaper.
As far as getting them in my eye, I put the contact on the tip of my finger, look straight ahead (I stood in front of the mirror the first week to practice.), and plop! It’s in.
Every once in a while I forget and rub my eye too vigorously. Then I get to play a fun round of Find the Contact Hiding on My Eyeball. Not an experience I particularly enjoy.
I’ve worn contacts for 21 years now. I could never go back to glasses all day for more than two days
Some things to remember/think about…
If you chose daily- if you happen to fall asleep with them on- you’ll have to wait quite a few hours before you can take them off- they adhere to your eyeball- I force peeled them off several times and have been diagnosed with a mild detached retina that I attribute to it.
Extended wear contact lenses go through a lot of abuse- but not as much handling as daily- and are very susceptible to contamination that can lead to infection- nothing sucks more than an eye infection that makes you sensitive to lights.
Disposables, IMHO, are worth it- they cost about 15.95-25.00 a case of six and last 6 weeks. Just toss them when its time for a fresh pair- man I feel decadent tossing contact lenses.
Get thee to an opthamologist and get on the road to peripheral vision!
good luck!!!
I had a huge problem touching my eye for the first time. It actually took me two appointments at the contact place to actually get myself to get the contact on my eye. Well, that’s not totally true. The lady said she was just going to show me how to do it - she held open my eyes on plopped one on to show me that it was easy. And it was! But you have to practice getting them out in front of the staff of wherever you go to make sure that you know how to take them out when you get home. And practice doing it until you feel comfortable enough doing it without trained staff to aid you. I didn’t, and I cried for about half an hour because I didn’t know how to do it when I got home, and kept pinching my eyes when I tried to take them out. I thank Og that a friend who wore contacts was there to calm me down and help me take them out.
Once you learn to get used to touching your eyes with CLEAN hands (always remember to wash your hands! Dirty hands means burning eyes!), I’d get accustomed to having to take care of the contact lens and making sure that they’re clean when you put them on.
I personally like the disposable lens (the kind you wear for 2 weeks). If you happen to drop one or tear a contact, it’s not the end of the world, just open another pack. I haven’t tried the 30-day wear ones. I went to see how much it was even with my insurance, and it was some ghastly number (I think $300-$500 for a year). If you have the money, you’ll be able to buy the convenience.
But contacts are DEFINITELY worth your time. They’re so much better than glasses that I’m surprised there are still people who think that glasses are more comfortable. Peripheral vision plus not having something hanging on your ears and your nose is a plus in my book.
OK…I registered on the board for the sole purpose of giving you a contact lens education. I hope I don’t let you down 
I AM the contact lens department at a privately owned ophthalmology office. I do not prescribe contact lenses, but I do everything else related to them, including patient education. I also consult with people interested in refractive surgery, so if you decide to forgo contacts and get LASIK, I’d be happy to help you with that too 
Traditional Dailywear Lenses: we don’t use these very much any more, as there are better, more hygienic, ways… Traditional (vialed) lenses are purchased one pair at a time. Depending on your eyes, they cost anywhere from $50-$500 a pair (yes, if you’re eyes are really whacked, a custom made toric can cost that much). You wear them during the day, take them out and clean them each night. Most people wear them until they tear or lose one, at which point, you pay for a replacement. There are “extended wear” versions of this lens, but I’ll cover that later. I do not recommend traditional lenses UNLESS you are the rare patient for whom disposables are not going to work.
Disposable Lenses: These are the lenses that are meant to be thrown away at various intervals of time. Primarily, we use a LOT of “2 week” disposables (for example: Acuvue Advance, which 80% of our patients wear, but to which i am allergic). You wear them during the day, clean them when you remove them, and throw them away after 14 wears. I strongly recommend these lenses. There are also monthly and “quarterly” disposables, which if cared for properly, shouldn’t pose a problem. I teach a lot of kids how to use contacts (one of our MDs will prescribe to kids as young as 8). When the doctor brings the parents out to me, I often recommend Daily Disposables…yes that’s right… wear them once and throw them away! This is THE most hygienic way to wear contacts, and many parents like this for their kids, because they don’t have to worry about the child properly caring for the lenses. Of course this is a more expensive road to travel (approx $360/year for just the lenses), but the incidence of contact lens related infection dramatically declines with frequent replacement.
Toric Contacts: these are only necessary if you require 1.00 diopter or more of correction for Astigmatism (I wear torics on the occasions that i wear contacts). Available as traditional or disposable, and obviously more costly that “regular” (spherical) contacts. For the improvement in my vision, I find the cost difference to be worth it.
RGPs (Rigid Gas Permeable): this is a hard lens. Not a lot of “new” contact lens wearers going with this, unless they have keratoconus. The people that have these tend to be REALLY faithful to them, as they do provide excellent vision correction. Expect to pay approximately $120-$200 a pair for “regular” RGP lenses and about double that if you require keratoconus lenses (and if you did, you’d probably know that by now and you’d be happy to pay for them).
As far as sleeping while wearing contacts, well, this just grosses me out. Type the words “acanthamoeba keratitis” into any search engine, and you’ll understand. Incidents of this blinding disfiguring infection are on the increase, especially in the UK and the Southern US. There is no such thing as clean water, and I won’t even wash my face while wearing contacts (much less swim while wearing anything other than a daily disposable, which is discarded when I’m done swimming).
No matter what ANYONE tells you, unless you’re wearing daily disposables, you must rub your lenses clean every night, unless using a hydrogen peroxide solution (which I love, but which very few people use). If you don’t rub your lenses clean, they will not remain comfortable. The new silicone hydrogel material that many manufacturers are using needs to be rubbed clean every day, as the lipids in your tears will “stick” to it, decreasing comfort (BTW, silicone hydrogel lenses are very comfy, and I’m a fan of Ciba’ 02 Optix). Almost all multipurpose solutions are marketed as “No Rub” today, but quite frankly, to do it properly, you’ll be pouring a LOT of solution down the drain.
I’ll keep monitoring this thread, and I’ll be happy to answer any questions I’m able to answer.
Good luck! And remember, practice makes perfect. About a week after you learn, you’ll forget that it was hard when you started.
colleen
I’ll add only this, which everyone else has neglected to mention: If you’re touching your eyeball, you’re doing it wrong. Your optician will have a person (such as WishIHadACoolName here) who will teach you how to put in and remove your contacts. Mine wouldn’t let me leave until I had it down pat.
Seconded. I love my Night & Days. The pair I’ve had in now have been in for about 2 weeks, and they feel fine.
Some of your success will depend on your specific physiology. For instance, I can wear my lenses for a month straight, like duffer. My wife uses the same brand of lenses, but can only keep them in a couple of days, tops. Her eyes just get too dry.
Don’t worry about touching your eye. Technically, you really don’t “feel” anything by doing it. More just pressure than any kind of sensation. You just have to get over that initial squick factor. Once you do, you’ll wonder why it even bothered you. When I put my lenses in, I just bang 'em right on there.
The thing to do is realize that your eye is not really as fragile as it first appears. Your eye is quite sensitive to the merest eyelash or breeze, but it’s actually as tough as the rest of your skin. It’s not like touching a ripe tomato, where you will leave a dent, but more like a green grape that’s still too firm to eat. Or like rubbing one fingertip with another - there’s lots of feeling but there’s no danger of one damaging the other.
I know I’m deeply in the minority here, but I can’t resist making the age-old comment about wondering why anyone would want to overcome the body’s natural aversion to putting something on your eye. I’ve been wearing glasses during all waking hours since I was 11 (I’m 30 now), and to this day, I refuse to convert. I understand the advantages, and most of the folks in my family wear contacts, so I’ve heard all the speeches. I just don’t have the desire, and I don’t find my glasses to be a such an inconvenience that I need to switch.
I have looked into LASIK, but the downfall for me is a skin condition I have that causes dry skin to wind up in my eye on occasion. I was told during a consultation that one shouldn’t rub one’s eye for something like a month after surgery, and that just wouldn’t cut it for me. I suspect that I’d have a real problem with eye-rubbing if I wore contacts, too.
However, I wish the OP all the luck in the world, and it sounds like the advice in here is sound enough to guide you on your new adventure. Enjoy!
Am I reading this wrong or are you insane? The 30 day extended wear contacts have to be taken out each night and cleaned? 
I’ve always called those daily wear.
On the other hand, if something does go wrong because I didn’t clean them each night, I have a helluva lawsuit to file. Can anyone say retirement?
Do the doctors you work with suggest the same? I honestly have never heard of cleaning extended-wear disposables regularly. The Focus brand are silicone-based (I believe) and are designed to resist the soil inherent in tear production. Maybe I’m just lucky, I’ve never had a problem with these and my doc insisted on 4 follow ups during the first 2 months of use to make sure there was no danger in wearing them that long.
Back to the OP. Talk to your doctor about the danger/benefit of any given style of contact. We can all give you opinions, but we aren’t qualified to tell you which is best, much less be able to examine your eyes. As far as rare, exotic diseases caused by contact use, there’s a reason they’re called rare and exotic. Chances are you’ll be fine.
As far as putting them in, I hold the lower lid down and place them below the cornea. Then, without blinking, gently use the lower lid to massage them into place. The worst I’ve experienced was mild irritation of the inside of the lid caused by the friction of my fingertip, but it’s never lasted longer than a few seconds.
Now get your butt to a qualified eye doctor and say goodbye to Nostril Dent. Good luck. 
I’ve been wearing contacts for ten years and I don’t even have to look in the mirror anymore to put them in. I wear thirty-day torics (since I have the fun of astigmatism in both eyes) which are much cheaper than the old one-year dealies I used to wear. I don’t do the enzymatic cleaning anymore with these, just the daily stuff. I don’t trust those “no rub” solutions either; they don’t clean to a reasonable level of comfort in my mind. Be warned–I am only supposed to wear my contacts twelve to fourteen hours a day. If I wear them any longer, I know it! Your eye doctor may restrict you like this. You may not be able to tolerate contact lenses at all. You may even find that they creep you out too much to wear. My mom has this; she’s never tried contact lenses, but she’s convinced that they can be felt. They can’t, at least not soft lenses. If you can feel it, it isn’t in the right place.
As for inserting them, I hold my eye open with the index finger and thumb of my left hand. I hold the contact lens on my right index finger and pop the lens in, then blink a few times to get it where it should be. (This is great for doing in front of squeamish people. My mom just about loses it if she sees me putting my lenses in. She really hates it if I am still holding my eye open. It creeps her out more than anything else in the world.) In all fairness, I must tell you that very rarely (three times in all the years I’ve been wearing them) a lens has wandered a bit from its proper spot and had to be looked for with the help of a mirror. But I still didn’t have to touch my actual eye to get it out.
[QUOTE=duffer]
Am I reading this wrong or are you insane? The 30 day extended wear contacts have to be taken out each night and cleaned? I’ve always called those daily wear.
Our doctors generally don’t prescribe the Night&Day because of the higher incidence of infection with them (NOT the gross infection I’m about to describe, but other more common infections, and edemas and whatnot). Of course, I can’t say “never” because of our 50,000 or so patients, about a dozen are actually wearing them. Many of them are long-run truck drivers, and we have a few soldiers wearing them too (super convenient to not have to worry about contact lens care when you have to worry about suicide bombers). Of course, if my information is correct, the US military is providing refractive surgery now to those in the military who desire it.
The reason I find extended wear so offensive is because if you’re sleeping with them in, you’re showering, washing your face, swimming, hot-tubbing, etc. with them in. And there is no such thing as clean water today. Yes, getting an acanthamoeba infection is fairly rare. However, I will never advise anyone to do something that can encourage this infection. Cases are in fact on the rise, and the “trade mags” indicate that the UK and the Southern US are both seeing issues with this. Why is the acanthamoeba so icky? Why not worry about pseudomonas or herpes of the eye or whatever (all still really gross BTW)? The Acanthamoeba can slide between the cornea and the contact lens. Once it does that, it’s outer layer forms a chemical bond with the contact lens material. While residing on your cornea, and there’s no delicate way to say this, it begins to eat the cornea. Acanthamoeba can permanently blind and disfigure in less than 24 hours. While it is unlikely that you’ll end up with one, I like to know you’ve been informed of the possibility. The only effective treatment that I’ve heard of is corneal transplant, if in fact the amoeba hasn’t eated too far into the eye, and a pair of suitable corneas becomes available.
I also like your method of insertion. That’s how I teach people to do it, because it’s a lot less scary that popping it directly on the cornea.
I personally don’t get a lot of comfort with contacts, so I don’t normally wear them. But when I wore them all the time, I was one of those who was punished for falling asleep while wearing them. I actually had to have them removed by the doctor I worked with at the time. It sucked. I can honestly say I didn’t do it a second time.
And yes, if you do ever get a serious infection due to wearing the contacts for such a long period of time, you get to not only sue your doctor, but the Ciba corporation for marketing them the way they do. Of course, I really hope you DON’T ever get the horrible acanthamoeba. Cuz, well, ick… I don’t want you blind and ugly
Thanks for clarifying. Especially the part of it being so rare. Of course there is a danger with infection. I just took issue with what I thought was a “sky is falling” wording of the issue. Anything that causes eye destruction and the obvious blindness that follows is never good.
That said, let me say a couple of other things.
Years ago (15? Has it been that long since high school?) I used daily wear’s. I swam with them in, and often wore then for a week at a time.
Note to the OP: do NOT do that with daily wear. I developed corneal ulcers. I have a seemingly indestructable immune system as the ulcers healed within a few weeks, but that is very rare and you do not want to fuck with your eyes. And if I’m not indestructable, I’ve learned to not tempt fate. Glasses beat figurative blindness any day. Point is, your eyes are incredibly resiliant, as are the rest of your organs. As important as they are, they are capable of recovering from anything less than direct trauma most of the time. (Again, anecdotal, I’m not a doctor)
I have to disagree with the mention of showering, hot-tubbing, etc. I shower daily and frequently rub my eyes due to lack of sleep. Never had a problem. When you close your eyelids, the eyeballs are pretty much waterproof. Whatever pathogen is in the water will hit your eye regardless of contact use. In addition, you can avoid water getting in you eyes when you’re in a hottub. If you can’t? Don’t go in the hottub with the drunk party boys/chicks. Naked hottubbing sans splashing is fast becomming a lost art. But I digress.
Do the doctors you work for have involvement in Lasik? From what I gather the eye is much more sensitive to damage after the procedure than wearing extended-wear contacts. If someone gets Lasik do they have to avoid showering and washing thier face for a month?
I don’t want to get in a fight here, but I have a problem with the doomsday scenarios you’ve offered for contact wearers,
For those who didn’t get the memo, what feels uncomfortable when you get something in your eye is your eyelid, generally speaking. Now and then I’ve had to peel out a semi-dried-up lens from my eye (entirely my fault, if I’d obeyed the instructions I’d have had no problems) and while it’s been a faff, my eye has cheerfully tolerated the abuse.
Detached retina? Hardly. The retina’s inside the eye, and at the back. I can’t imagine how much you’d have to traumatise the eyeball before you detached the retina. :eek:
I detest ‘soft’ lenses, and am waiting until I get a job to get a new set of RGPs. I had the accuvue II torics, and I am just not satisfied with torics - the sweet spot seems to randomly orbit around my pupil and give me blurry spots. I have worn everything from a pair of schlerals [when I was recovering from some eye damage] through the old style hard lenses through RGPs before getting the soft torics. [first hard lenses were when i was 16, am now 44]
Oddly enough, since the schlerals, it has never taken me more than 2 days to get back to an 8-16 hour a day wearing schedule.
Not to mention that the soft lenses have a nasty habit of being floopy - I have extremely long eyelashes and I have to be exceedingly careful or the damn soft lenses want to fold up, and I am of the opinion that ‘pinching’ the lenses off is way less efficient and comfortable than the old eyelid tweak and pop for RGP/hard lenses.
I’ll give a third “thumbs-up” for the Night & Days. I’ve worn contacts for over 17 years and just switched to these for the past year. I’ve considered Lasik because I hated not being able to see in the middle of the night and was tired of the daily routine of putting them on/off. These solve that problem and I don’t think Lasik will be in my future.
The only thing I had to get used to was the contact sticking to the eyeball first thing in the morning when the eyes were dry. However, eye drops solved that problem in about 2 seconds. One drop in each eye when I wake and I’m good to go. JustLenses.com had them for $47.99 a box which is a 3 month supply.
I won’t try to convert you either, but for me, my Rx (approx -7, -8) is such that glasses cause my face to look like the areas behind my lenses are pulled in from the rest of my face, and my eyes to be pin-sized. You can’t see out the side of the glasses and they get smudged and fogged up. I wore them from ages 6 to 14 and was ecstatic to get lenses.
I fourth Focus Night&Day 30-day lenses. I take them out and rinse them every morning and they remain comfortable all month. I pay $140 for a 6-month supply through the optometrist; I know I could do even better mailorder but I do like to have them checked out annually (plus it’s supposed to be the law).
And you don’t have to touch your actual eye. Be patient when you first try them; I had forgotten all about how frustrating it was until a friend got them as an adult and described her trouble with getting them in. Then I flashed back to 20-minute sessions of failing to insert them and feeling upset. Now it’s like nothing.
[Do the doctors you work for have involvement in Lasik? From what I gather the eye is much more sensitive to damage after the procedure than wearing extended-wear contacts. If someone gets Lasik do they have to avoid showering and washing thier face for a month?
I don’t want to get in a fight here, but I have a problem with the doomsday scenarios you’ve offered for contact wearers,
[/QUOTE]
Nope, we’re not fighting I think you’re doing an excellent job of making me better at answering questions. And I appreciate that you are showing the other side of the issue too. I guess the doomsday effect comes from the fact that I don’t come across as well in print (you know, no intonations and all that), and that I am required in my job to illustrate all the bad stuff too (so that NO patient can say “I didn’t know that” and sue us). Sorry about that. I make every patient sign a form that says that they understand what I’ve taught them and the risks involved blablabla… I do think contact lenses are great, even if they’re not my primary choice for correction. I can’t have LASIK, and I have a fairly groovy “wardrobe” of glasses now. I’d wear contacts if I wasn’t so sensitive to them 
Before I had kids, I wore them 6 days a week.
The trouble with acanthamoeba is that it bonds to the contact lens chemically, and continues to eat the cornea because it stays there the whole time. It does not rinse or blink away. If you don’t have contact lenses in, the acanthamoeba has no way to adhere to the cornea, pretty much eliminating the risk, as it blinks off the eye easily. So that’s why that’s fairly dangerous and icky. If I am not entirely incorrect, I think this particular microbe only causes damage for contact lens wearers. Do yourself a giant favor though… if you decide to vacation somewhere tropical (even as far south as the Carolinas) or go on a cruise, ask your doctor to give you a supply of Ciba Dailies to wear daily and throw away while you vacation. Acanthamoeba thrives is warm waters (especially in lakes, streams, and hot tubs) and I’ve read of quite a few cases that were the result of a contaminated cruiseship pool. Two weeks or so of removing your lenses before bed and popping new ones in every morning wouldn’t be so bad ;). And besides, if your doctor is nice, he or she would probably be happy to give you the Dailies for free (as we can get all the free samples we want from the manufacturers and the distributors). I do that quite often, as long as the prescribing doctor agrees that it’s an appropriate solution. Just give your doctor about 2 weeks notice, in case the distributor is a slacker about sending trials.
Yes, I do work for a practice that does LASIK. You may wash your face after LASIK, but you do have to be a little more careful for about 2 weeks, especially regarding soap and moisturizers. The cornea is (as you did mention in your post) very resilient and heals quite quickly. Not to mention that post-LASIK, you use artificial tears, steroid drops and antibiotic drops several times a day. You are discouraged from rubbing the eyes for a while to allow the “flap” to heal properly. We did have one patient who rubbed his eyes and wrinkled his cornea (eeew), but all that needed to be done was to re-open and pat down the flap. That guy went on to 20/15 vision post-op and is quite happy. After surgery, you’re provided with some super sexy :dubious: goggles to wear for the first 24 hours, then to bed every night for a week, so you don’t bonk your eye while you sleep. The most common complaint after it is dryer than usual eyes, but that too fades with time.
Crap, I’m new at this board, and I think I forgot some of what I meant to address. I don’t quote too well I guess