My eyes have been bothering me lately, so yesterday I went to the eye doctor. He gave me some contacts. Now, about ten years ago, I wore glasses for a while. I hated them, and quit wearing 'em soon after. So now I wear contacts.
Oh man, do I hate them. It took me thirty minutes to put them in yesterday, although only ten this morning. My vision’s not any better- if anything, it’s worse. I’m constantly getting blurry vision, I guess from the lens drying out.
Does it get better? Someone tell me it gets better.
Are your lenses hard or soft? Hard lenses need to be moistened constantly because they dry out really fast. Soft shouldn’t be doing that–if they’re soft, chances are you just have to get used to the way they feel. It does get better; when I first got soft lenses it would take a long time to get them in but now it takes all of ten seconds to put my lenses in. You just have to get used to sticking your finger in your eye, and used to having something in your eye. I could never adjust to hard lenses, they’d always dry out and sometimes fall out, and they always felt itchy. If you do have hard, maybe try getting soft?
I love my contacts. I had rigid gas-permeable in my teens and I just stopped wearing them because they made me cry, they hurt so bad! In those days those were all I could get with my astigmatism (that’s the word, right?)
Technology has moved forward and now I have soft disposable ones and you can pry them from my cold dead fingers. I love them, I love the clarity of vision, not wearing glasses, I think Ihave nice eyes, so I get to show them off.
How long have you been wearing them? In hours, not days. When I first got contact lenses, I was told to wear them for four hours at a time, then increase the time each day until I could wear them the whole day. Once my eyes “got used” to having them in there, I could wear them all the time.
It does take some practice to put them in right, and if they’re soft lenses, to see whether or not they are inside out, but it’s worth it if you hate glasses.
I have both, and probably wear my glasses more often, but that’s because I love the frames, not for any comfort issue. I actually see better, esp. peripherally, with my contact lenses. I’ve been wearing them for 10 years, and now don’t even need a mirror to put them in.
The first time I tried to put in my contact lenses, it took me two hours! After a while, I got used to having lage fingery objects around my eyes, and now I usually need only a couple of minutes to put my lenses in.
One thing… make sure you moisten the lenses just before you insert them. You can wash off any bits of fluff that mey land on the lenses as well.
It sounds like your eyes are dry; you may need to add eyedrops.
If your eyes are especially sensitive it helps to warm the lens solution to body temperature before you moisten/rinse the lenses. They will then be warm as you put them in. Just draw a sinkful of hot water and dump the closed lens-rinse-solution bottle in to warm its contents.
Make sure the lenses are in the right eye as well. I occasionally start to put mine in backwards. My eyes are of very different prescriptions, and if I put the weaker lens in the eye that needs the stronger lens, its vision is still so much improved that I may not notice it’s fully improved. Then I go to put the stronger lens in the other eye and AAACK, the distortion! That’s when I know I have to take them out and reverse them.
They’re soft lenses, for which I’m eternally grateful; my ex had rigid lenses, and now I have some small taste of what she was constantly complaining about.
I’ve got a lens in my amblyopic eye, and I must say that it’s helping quite a bit- so THAT’S what the third dimension looks like! My good eye, though, does NOT like having the lens in there. I’ve taken it out, but it’s still complaining at me- everything through that eye is vaguely blurry now.
I’m getting better at taking them out- only took a few seconds this time, and I have yet to, you know, pull my entire eyeball out of its socket.
I’ve worn some sort of corrective lenses since I was seven.
I got my first set of contacts when I was twelve. I treated them like crap and scarred up my corneas before I gave them up. Tried again when I was seventeen, wore them for several years and just got tired of the cleaning and protecting, and I never remembered to take them out. I was really doing some damage to my eyes.
I’ve had glasses exclusively for five or six years and I love them. I also think I look better with glasses on than with them off.
Make sure you clean them well, and if they are hard (rigid) go back to the doc and get some soft. Wear them only a few hours a day (this is important) until you work up to all day. Clean them. Every day, and do your enzymatic cleaning too.
If the solution is hurting your eyes, try a final rinse in plain saline. Worked wonders for me, as the enzymatic all-in-one stuff is irritating.
Don’t worry, it should get better. I wear contacts too and found them uncomfortable at first. And it took me forever to get them in my eye! But it got easier and my eyes got used to it.
It takes some practice to get contacts in. It took two tries at the optometrist’s office to get them in :smack:
But once I got them in I felt like crying because the world looked so bright and clear!
So maybe you need more practice with putting them in and cleaning them. Maybe that’s contributing to your eye irritation. And I agree, eyedrops help a lot since this thing on your eye encounters a lot of debris during the day.
Are the lenses inside out? Some contact lenses are so thin that the contact can easily be inserted in the eye either way; however, when the lens is flipped inside out, the edge forms a little “lip” that can cause discomfort ranging from dryness/itchiness to pain.
If you find that you really can’t get used to your contacts, talk to your doctor about trying a different brand. I have to different brands, one for my left eye, one for my right.
I have been wearing contacts for about 10 years, and last time I got new ones, it had to go through 5 different brands before I could get a comfortable one for my right eye.
My left eye was no problem, I tried one kind, and it worked just fine. My right eye has astigmatism. My doctor was trying to find me a brand that wasn’t super expensive. That didn’t work so well, so I went to a kind that is more expensive, but is a lot more comfortable.
These days putting my contacts in is just as routine as brushing my teeth. Give them a chance, will almost certainly get used to them. Also, I found putting my left contact in before my right seems to work better. At least that is how hit worked when I first started wearing contacts. Now I think it is just a habit.
I second BluMoon. If the problem continues go to the optometrist and see if you can try a different brand or type. For me, I have to wear toric lenses. They are a little stiffer than other kinds of lenses and slide around my eye less. I tried to wear disposable for a while and gave up when I got headaches and blurriness and other things.
Keep trying, I swear it is better than wearing glasses.
You might also pay attention to the solution you use for your contacts - I use the Renu Multi-purpose solution and have no problems. At one point I tried the Renu Multiplus and had a reaction to an ingredient in it. I switched back to the Multi-purpose solution and to a new pair of contacts (I have disposables) and had no more problems.
I’ve worn hard or gas permeable lenses for 32 years. I’m legally blind in one eye and don’t see very well with the other one. When I first got the them I thought the doctor had made a mistake and given me someone else’s lenses. It took a week or so to get used to them. But after that week, I’ve never had a problem. Don’t give up. But if it doesn’t get better, go back to the doctor and have it checked.
Soft lenses shouldn’t be that uncomfortable - don’t wait…get it checked sooner rather than later. If they’re toric lenses, make sure you’re putting them in with the notch at the bottom too.
I started out in gas permeable (ouch) as a teenager & moved to soft in my early twenties - no comparison whatsoever. With soft it’s like you’re not even wearing them (well, until you’ve had them in for 18 hours anyway…). I had no choice as a teenager - the toric lenses for astigmatism were too expensive back then & my doctor didn’t recommend them at the time.
Hands up everyone who went from gas perm to soft…remember taking the gas perms out by pulling your eyelid back & blinking to pop them out, then when you first tried to take the soft ones out went “Oh my God - I can’t get them out! What do you mean I have to touch my eye?!” :eek:
Then a week later you couldn’t believe you ever wore anything else but soft…
It gets better, dear. Well, it got better for both myself & my sister, anyway. I still have occasional problems with dryness, but I use either re-wetting drops or Visine for contacts. And the whole sticking your finger in your eye thing will get WAY easier.
Lightnin’, have you ever had seasonal allergies? Mine never bothered me until I got contacts- I think the pollen gets trapped under there. Unless I take my sweet, sweet Claritin, I get the same symptoms you have- dry, blurry eyes.
Part of it, I think, is getting used to touching your eyeball: the instinct not to do this is very strong, so for me a large part of learning to put in contacts was having to learn to decondition that blink/wince reflex. It doesn’t take that long, though, once you realise that poking your eyeball {with CLEAN fingers} doesn’t actually hurt, your eyes should adjust quickly, and you’re away laughing.
This morning I just. couldn’t. get. the. left. lens. in. Seriously, I tried for thirty minutes- it’s so flimsy that as soon as it touches my eye, it flips inside-out. It also seems to want to stick to my finger instead of the eye. I know part of the problem is that I have long lashes, but pulling them up and out of the way doesn’t seem to affect it too much.
The right one (which, luckily, is my Really Bad Eye) went in fairly quickly, and it seems to help my vision quite a bit- but now, just 3 hours later, it’s very hazy. I’ve been using the blink-n-clean eyedrops, which helps… for about fifteen minutes. Then it’s hazy again.
So… how much is Lasik again? Ooh, here’s an appropriate smiley- :smack: ow, my eye!
My eyes are watering just reading this. Thanks to my freaky eye problem, I can’t wear contacts anyway. I would never be able to put something in my eye. I can’t even do eyedrops.
I love my contacts. I had rigid gas-permeable in my teens and I just stopped wearing them because they made me cry, they hurt so bad! In those days those were all I could get with my astigmatism (that’s the word, right?)