Are Contact Lenses a Good Idea For Me?

For the majority of people who need help seeing better, it’s great to have the option to be able to be glasses-free sometimes. Contact lenses are an excellent tool which can liberate us from the use of glasses in a multitude of scenarios, but it’s important to consider that our eyes were not designed to have a piece of plastic on them, and so we should carefully consider the pros and cons of contact lens wear.

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Pros of wearing contact lenses

• Contact lenses allow you to have much more natural standard of vision, without any reduction in your peripheral visual field.
• They don’t fog up or get steamy whilst wearing a face covering or moving from a cold to warm climate (outdoors to indoors).
• They don’t get wet when it's raining like glasses do.
• You don’t have to worry about them flying off your face, or obstructing your vision when you’re playing sports or are at the gym.
• You don’t get any facial fatigue, like you can with glasses sitting on your nose or ears, particularly with higher prescriptions where glasses lenses can be significantly heavier.
• You have your natural aesthetic, without glasses on your face.
• You don’t have to worry about feeling like your glasses don’t match your changing style day to day.

Cons of wearing contact lenses

• You have to be a lot more conscious with contact lens care, due to the increased risks of serious eye infection. Good hygiene and following the aftercare advice of your optometrist are essential.
• Vision can be unstable if you have a high level of astigmatism.
• Toric contact lenses and lens cleaning solutions can be more expensive.
• Contact lenses tend to make our eyes more dry by making our natural tear film less stable.
• They can make your eyes more irritated during allergy season.
• Our natural instincts tell us not to get close to our eyes, so it can take some time and feel counterintuitive to try to overcome this instinct when learning to insert and remove contact lenses.
• It can be more difficult to maintain both good distance, and close range vision as you get older with contact lenses.

Keep in mind that contact lenses should never be instead of glasses, as our eyes need time during waking hours to re-oxygenate. Always make sure you’re giving your eyes, at the very least, one full day off from contact lenses per week.

Every set of eyes are different and require careful consideration. Your optometrist can assess your eyes and work with you to discuss your needs and goals to deliver the best options to you. If you're ready to try out contact lenses, why not start with Eyebou's vitamin contact lenses?

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This post was written by Eyebou's lead optometrist, Mai Monavar.