Contact lenses have come a long way. Not too long ago, putting in a contact lens was rather like shoving a piece of thick, uncomfortable glass right into your eyeball. Actually, to call them uncomfortable is a vast understatement.
Those things were practically torture devices. They fell out of the eye, tended to break, and they could severely damage the surface of the eye itself. Back then, there was no such thing as a cheap contact lens either. They were mercilessly expensive in addition to being frequently painful. Nowadays, however, they make contact lenses that you can hardly tell you are wearing. There are even lenses you can leave in while you are sleeping.
Some people still do not understand the advantages of wearing contact lenses. Colors are brighter, you see with far more clarity, and they are arguably better than glasses in every possible way. After all, glasses also break, they get lost, the lenses get scratched and smeary. They are heavy, they can cause headaches, and they are just generally cumbersome. In direct opposition, contact lenses these days are almost magical. They are much more advanced than they used to be as few as ten years ago. Just as a for instance, you no longer have to deal with painfully dry lenses – there are dozens of solutions and formulas designed to combat that. Furthermore, because there are a variety of affordable lenses today – there are even web sites which specialize in offering cheap contact lenses – you no longer have to worry about making a pair of them stretch until your prescription changes. They are no longer hard and cumbersome. Not only are they soft and comfortable, but there are also disposable lenses, so you can replace them when they start to wear out or if you accidentally make them get so dry they crack.
Many people also love the fact that you can get colored contact lenses. Glasses cannot give you a new eye color; contacts can. You can basically change your eye color to any shade you want, it does not matter what it is. This is ideal for all those blue eyed people who always wished they had green eyes instead. You can even become a grey eyed girl or a brown eyed boy if you so choose.
In addition to colored contact lenses, there are also a variety of cosmetic contact lenses. These are typically for people who do not necessarily have eye problems, but do want to change the color of their eyes. For that matter, there are also novelty contact lenses.
A novelty contact lens is just that – a novelty. You can get cat’s eye contacts, snake eye contacts, white ones, black ones, red ones – you get the picture. These are also classified as cosmetic contact lenses. They are popular for costumes, especially around Halloween. Many people in the theatre and such also use these types of lenses.
Whether you have astigmatism or need bifocals, you can still wear contact lenses. These days, just about anyone with any type of eye or sight problem can wear them.
Bernice Eker is an expert on contact lenses and wants to help people by sharing her expertise.