Friday 14 October 2011

About Contact Lenses

Perhaps you are thinking of joining the increasing ranks of contact lens wearers. A lot of people with vision problems prefer contacts because they are more comfortable than glasses and they do not affect their appearance. Glasses slip down your nose, weigh on your ears and nose, and have glare problems with light. You also have to have special lenses or an extra pair to keep the sun from blinding you when wearing glasses. Contacts lenses avoid all this and simply correct your vision problems and allow you to see perfectly normally. Most individuals won't even realize you are wearing a contact lens because they are virtually impossible to see in your eye.
A lot has changed since contacts were first introduced. A hard contact lens was the first lens to be made. This type of contact lens was made of a glass material making it very rigid and very uncomfortable for your eye. As a result most people chose glasses as the were cheaper and easier to wear. After all it was very easy to scratch your eye with a hard contact lens when trying to get it out because of the rigidity of the material. These type of lenses were then superseded by polymer based lenses which resulted in greater comfort. However these did not solve another problem - the lenses blocked oxygen flow to the eye and this caused problems with long term use.
The latest products are silicon hydrogel lenses. These are known as soft contact lenses. The material is like plastic and conforms to the eye easier than their earlier counterparts. They are also thinner and allow oxygen through. This thinner material tends to tear easily, but gives more comfort to your eye. It is an almost weightless material so your eye will barely feel its presence.
The arrival of silicon hydrogel lenses has also brought a range of colored lens which can be used to change your eye color. You may have seen some one with violet, jade, yellow or red eyes. These color contacts can be very effective but there is a downside. They are a bit heavier than normal lenses and they tend to let less oxygen through to the eye. Contact lenses are also available to correct to correct more serous vision problems such as astigmatisms. For people who need to correct both far and nearsightedness bi-focal contact lenses are also available.
The first step in getting contact lenses is to have an eye exam and get your prescription covering the lens type you require (of course you have to take the advice of your eye doctor on this). You can then buy a small quantity of the prescribed lenses to ensure that you can live happily with them. At that point you can think about buying contact lenses on the internet. Buying contacts on line is actually much easier than buying spectacles online as in the latter case there are many more choices to make. With contacts you simply have to enter your prescription and you will get exactly the same lenses at a much lower price.

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