You’ve noticed a change in your vision and took a proactive approach by booking an eye test. The results are in and you need some corrective eyewear, but do you choose glasses or contact lenses?
There’s no correct answer. It will depend entirely on your lifestyle and preferences. This guide is to help you decide which is the most convenient option for you.
Glasses, The Obvious Choice
You’re in an optician’s and surrounded by glasses displays. Naturally, glasses are the most obvious choice. More recently, glasses have become not just a tool to help with vision but also a fashion accessory.
Glasses have lots of benefits:
• They’re Easy To Use: Just place them on your face and you’re good to go. They also don’t require much care – you can just use a microfibre cloth to wipe away any dust or smudges.
• They Are Available in Many Styles and Colours: You can find a pair that suits you and your personality with lots of different shapes, sizes, and colours to choose from.
• They Don’t Need to be Replaced Often: Unless your prescription changes every eye test, there’s no need to replace your glasses.
• They Don’t Increase Your Risk of Eye Infections: Glasses don’t touch your eyes, so they don’t pose any increased risk of eye infection.
However, glasses also have their drawbacks:
• They Might Distort Your Vision: If you have astigmatism or a strong prescription, your field of vision with glasses may be distorted.
• They Might be Uncomfortable: You might not like how glasses feel on your face – the weight of your frames and lenses can cause pressure on the bridge of your nose and your ears.
• They Can Become Foggy or Dirty in Certain Conditions: The lenses in your glasses can also become foggy or dirty in certain conditions, such as outside in the rain or a dirty or dusty environment.
• They May Not Be Good For Sports or Certain Activities: Glasses can fall off your face or get broken more easily during sports or other physical activities.
• They’re More Expensive to Replace: Having a single pair of glasses means you’ll have to buy new ones if those frames get lost or irreparably broken.
Contact Lenses, The More Practical Choice?
You can get a variety of types of contact lenses nowadays, they’re much less limited than they had been in the past. You can get contacts for daily, monthly, or fortnightly use. There are also different types of contact lenses depending on your vision problems. You can use toric lenses for astigmatism, multifocal lenses for presbyopia, or spherical lenses for myopia and hyperopia.
Thinking of trying contacts? Here are some benefits:
• They Provide Better Peripheral Vision: An advantage of contacts is that they sit right on the eye and move with it. For that reason, contacts are a great choice for people who lead active lifestyles.
• They’re Difficult to Damage: Contacts can’t be damaged in the same way as glasses by sitting on them, falling off your face, or being stepped on.
• There Are Different Options Based on Your Needs: You are able to decide which type of contact lenses work best for you.
• They Aren’t Obvious on Your Face: It’s hard to tell if you’re wearing contact lenses, so they can be a good option for those who want to have a natural appearance or highlight their makeup.
• You Don’t Need to Buy Prescription Sunglasses: When wearing contacts, you can choose any standard sunglasses you like as opposed to buying a special prescription pair.
However, there are certain disadvantages to contact lenses:
• There’s a Chance of Infection: The biggest risk with contact lenses is an eye infection. Infection risks are lowest with daily disposable lenses because you are using a fresh pair every day. For all other lens types, you need to follow good hygiene practices to reduce the risk.
• They Require Special Cleaning: You need to clean your contact lenses every night with a contact solution and store them properly in a case.
• They Require You to Touch Your Eye: For some people, it can take a while to get used to placing and removing your contact lenses from your eyeballs. Some people might never be comfortable with this.
• They May Blur Your Vision at Times: If you have astigmatism, your lenses are typically designed not to move around a lot, but in some cases, your vision may become blurry if your lenses rotate.
• They Can Cause Dryness and Irritation: Some people may experience eye dryness and irritation whilst wearing contact lenses.
To learn more about the contact lenses we offer at D.I. Blow Opticians, click here.
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Alternating between glasses and contacts gives you the best of both worlds. Each kind of eyewear compensates for the drawbacks of the other and gives you the flexibility to do whatever you like during the day with the clearest vision possible.
The most important thing to remember overall though, is to always follow the advice given by your optician.
