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Contact Lenses
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
I was wondering how many people here wear contact lenses and also how they find them for comfort - how long they can wear them for before their eyes get tired or go red.
Also how hygenic you are with them too, how often you clean them and the actual case - one friend I had used to spit in his lens when it got dry and then stick it back in his eye - I'm sure the fool could have given himself all sort of infections.
In fact I remember him saying he had to keep changing his lenses because they kept getting holes in them - I reckon it was protein or something eating away at it!!!
What make do people use and have they found one better then another?
Also how hygenic you are with them too, how often you clean them and the actual case - one friend I had used to spit in his lens when it got dry and then stick it back in his eye - I'm sure the fool could have given himself all sort of infections.
In fact I remember him saying he had to keep changing his lenses because they kept getting holes in them - I reckon it was protein or something eating away at it!!!
What make do people use and have they found one better then another?
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Diamond - Don't the opticians know this? *Shrugs*
Don't the optician's know what?? I'm confused ??
I think the coloured ones are horrible I know so many people that use them and i think it's just about the worse thing you can change - eyes are like jewels and to change them like that I think is just wrong.
I have plain old brown eyes and happy enough with the colour - I'm just glad they are the same colour!!
As for comfort and so on, doesn't you optician have any advise on what may be best for you, or a broschure? Such as if you have an active lifestyle you should use these, if you do this you should use those and so on?
I'm not saying I'm having any problems just wanna get a general discussion going on here to gauage experiences.
I used soft for years and then my aunt said how much better hard are for you - I tried them - it was arwful - tried for about 6 months and never got used to them. They used to keep drying out and dropping out .. aah horrible!!
I went back to soft but after that I could never wear them for as long as before.
Then I found some that have what are called lipids built into the material - it's used in heart valves to stop the body rejecting the valve and in contact lenses it means my eyes don't go red so quickly.
I tried the sleep in contact lenses - only thing I found is that you have to take them out every few days to clean them cos they go cloudy.
My Aunt had Laser thing done to her eyes and she's so pleased with them .. her number was really strong though so her eyes were really bad - she needed mega thick glasses before - now she doesn't need anything.
I'm considering it but I want the doctors to have a few more years to practise first!!
Also there are better lasers coming out all the time.
I think the best method was the Russian one that didn't use a laser but a miniture lawn mower and it shaves off part of the eye to create a new lense or something - worked well but was so freaky!!
Anyone here planning on being lasered?
Ditto... especially the worth every penny part! I wore monthly disposable ones before that, for about 3 years, but because i have M.E i nap at silly times of the day, so the ones i can sleep in made more sense for me.
Be wary, be very wary. Even Ophthalologists are divided on this one...
what are the monthly sleep ones like comfort wise? because my eyes get pretty dry after wearing daily ones all day...
what brands do people get?
Well, I'm planning on going to contacts and was thinking about soft ones so I don't have to mess around with them every day. Plus it'd be easier wondering around my college when I go knowing they won't fall out.
I'm not very confident in my glasses
Anywho, I'm sure I had a point....:chin:
only problem is that i have have a huge back log of about 8 months of daily ones where i havent been wearing them often enough! ah well, ill have to wait for them to run out first:(
there quite comfortable but usualy about 10 o clock my eyes feel like there all....stuck! (i put them in around 7 in the morning)
yeah im really good with cleaning them and that!
how annoying is it when you drop one and u have to look for it for ages!!!
hehe! thats why i stopped wearing monthly ones... also cleaning them when drunk can prove very difficult!:D
i know what you mean about your eyes feeling like theyre stuck... find it worse if im in a smokey pub or club, my eyes completely dry out!
Yeah that's what bugs me about smokey nightclubs - not breathing in the smoke but the smoke drying out my contacts!!
I use Proclear Compatibles - they stop your eyes from going red and itchy for much longer then normal contact lenses I'd highly recommend them to first time users - if you can't get used to these then I don't think your likely to find another soft lense that is better (comfort wise)
Oh I just saw this on the web
Corneal Swelling:
When you awaken, corneal edema/swelling is present, and on average this increases the corneal thickness by about 4%. It takes 30 minutes for the eye to resolve this edema. Please wait for at least 30 minutes every morning after waking before placing your contact lenses into the eyes.
is this why eyes feel puffy inthe morning after just waking??
most probably... thanks for that info by the way-i think ill bear it in mind:)
Has anyone got an astigmatism? Boots have got new daily disposable toric lenses for that now, which I would need if i decided to wear contacts.
umm i want to get the sleepy ones but mum isnt keen and its not like i buy em.
these ones r decent but can b annoyin occasionally!
The longer you wear them for, the more used you get to it. So at first you can only wear it for 2 hours before your eyes go red. But then you get more tolerant.
As for cleaning, you should never gob in it, only use the solutions. These are your eyes were're talking about, not your elbow.
As, for drying out, you can get eye solutions in vials or bottles. I use them bc my eyes fry out quickly.:o
I actually never realised contact lenses were so complicated :rolleyes:
I don't think I'd have laser treatment either... sounds great in theory but I dunno, if anything went wrong you could end up blind I guess, and I'd rather wear glasses.
Also, people tell me I look odd without glasses on.
For this reason they do become irritating in a sense that they dry your eyes out quickly and what not. you really shouldnt wear them to sleep in cuz this can cause really bad infections and other stuff. you do need to be careful when you wear contact lenses, even if your finger has a tiny hair or something on it when you're putting them in or taking them out, its really dangerous.
Just watch it and be careful is all i can say.
Wearing lenses overnight could cause blindness (From BBC Website)
Leaving contact lenses in overnight carries a hugely increased risk of an infection that can cause permanent sight loss, say researchers.
Contact lens use is already known to be most significant cause of microbial keratitis, a condition in which the outer layer of the eye, the cornea, becomes inflamed after infection by bacteria, fungi or amoebae.
This risk is 80 times that of the non-wearer.
But the Netherlands study, published in "The Lancet", has found that the type, and duration, of contact lens use increases or reduces the risk of infection.
People who wore hard contact lenses had about a 1 in 10,000 chance per year of picking up the condition.
Vastly increased risk
Wearers of soft contact lenses using them for 24 hours at a time or less trebled that risk.
However, people who wore soft contact lenses for longer than this faced a risk of microbial keratitis 20 times higher than hard contact lens wearers.
The research concluded: "Use of contact lenses can lead to profound and permanent visual loss in other healthy eyes.
"The main risk factor for corneal infection is overnight wear, which should be discouraged."
The risks of infection are high because contact lenses stop the cornea getting enough oxygen, with the water layer on top stagnated, leading to deposits of bacteria and dirt on the lens surface.
New soft lenses being launched have increased permeability to oxygen, but John Dart, from Moorfield Eye Hospital in Hospital suggests this may not be enough to cut the risk entirely.
Safety not yet known
He said: "Pre-marketing studies are too small to be able to warn of uncommon but serious problem, so whether the increased oxygen permeability of the silicone hydrogels makes extended-wear contact lenses safe may not be known for a long while.
"Another experiment at the expense of the public health may not be forgiven."
There are currently about 1.7m contact lens wearers in the UK.
The Dutch team used information provided from 379 opthalmologists, who revealed 92 cases of microbial keratitis.