Are you tired and annoyed with wearing eyeglasses? Are you thinking about maybe switching to wearing contacts instead? Wearing contact lenses probably isn’t as difficult as you may think and there are a number of advantages as well. Find out more by taking a minute to read this short article about wearing contacts.
Contact Lens History
Contact lenses actually date back into the 19th century if you can believe it. The first ones were made of brown glass and were quite difficult to wear as you might imagine but they were helpful to people with particular eye problems that could not wear glasses. Some significant breakthroughs in the 1940s and 1950s when plastic lenses were introduced. These new contacts were made of a hard plastic called polymethyl methacrylte, which did not allow gas like oxygen to pass through them. The better contact lenses that we have today are rigid gas permeable, which do allow oxygen to easily pass through them. This is important because the cornea of your eye needs oxygen from the air since it does not get oxygen from your blood.
Even in the last few years there have been an increase in contact lens technology as lenses are now being made for people with astigmatism and even for people who need bifocals.
Reasons for Wearing Contacts
Most people’s primary advantages for wearing contacts is for cosmetic purposes, but there are also other reasons:
* Unlike glasses, the lens moves with your eye so there is no image distortion.
* Your side vision is not obstructed with the frame of the glasses.
* Contacts don’t steam up like eyeglasses do when you go from cold to warm temperatures.
* Sometimes contacts are the only solution for people who need vastly different lenses for each eye.
* If you need different types of lenses for each eye, contacts may be the only solution that allow your eyes to work their best.
How Do You Go About Getting Contact Lenses?
To find out if you can wear contacts, you should go see your eye care professional and get a consultation. You can’t go and order contacts with just a prescription for glasses. It’s a different kind of prescription. When you get your exam, you’ll find it’s pretty simple and does not take very long. You’ll just do some vision testing including the test for Glaucoma, which is an important test to get. It’s just a tiny puff of air that goes into your eye.