So I finally broke down after 27 years of wearing glasses and got contacts. Why, oh why are they so hard to put in? Is reading things up close supposed to be blurry in them? I'm only on day one and I'm thinking about chucking 'em and getting more glasses.

Stymie said:

Ive had them for 13 years. Putting them on will get easier. They shouldnt be blurry at all. Are they in the wrong eyes? That is , if your rx is different in each eye.

You'll get used to them very quickly. It's cause your eyes have never been covered in plastic before. I love contacts. So convenient for gigs!

DarkKnight1 said:

No, they are in the right eyes and one is different than the other. Reading up close bothers me for some reason now.

It takes time to get used to them. Give them a few weeks before you give up.

However, the reading thing doesn't sound normal to me. I don't think you're old enough to be having up-close reading issues, and if it just started with the contacts. . . . . . do you have astigmatism?

I've been wearing hard contacts since I was 8! (It's DEFINITELY time for Lasik!) It's been over 15 years, but I still have trouble with them every now and then. Sometimes, your eye just doesn't want a foreign object all up in it!

Stymie said:

A contact lens (also known simply as a "contact") is a corrective, cosmetic, or therapeutic lens usually placed on the cornea of the eye.

Contact lenses usually serve the same corrective purpose as conventional glasses, but are lightweight and virtually invisible — many commercial lenses are tinted a faint blue to make them more visible when immersed in cleaning and storage solutions. Cosmetic lenses are deliberately coloured for altering the appearance of the eye.

It has been estimated that about 125 million people use contact lenses worldwide (2%)[1], including 28 to 38 million in the United States[2][1] and 13 million in Japan [3]. The types of lenses used and prescribed vary markedly between countries, with rigid lenses accounting for over 20% of currently-prescribed lenses in Japan, Netherlands and Germany but less than 5% in Scandinavia[1].

People choose to wear contact lenses for various reasons[4]. Many consider their appearance to be more attractive with contact lenses than with glasses. Contact lenses are less affected by wet weather, do not steam up, and provide a wider field of vision. They are more suitable for a number of sporting activities[5]. Additionally, ophthalmological conditions such as keratoconus and aniseikonia may not be accurately correctable with glasses.

Leonardo da Vinci is frequently credited with introducing the general principle of contact lenses in his 1508 Codex of the eye, Manual D, where he described a method of directly altering corneal power by submerging the eye in a bowl of water. Leonardo, however, did not suggest his idea be used for correcting vision--he was more interested in learning about the mechanisms of accommodation of the eye.[6]

René Descartes proposed another idea in 1636, in which a glass tube filled with liquid is placed in direct contact with the cornea. The protruding end was to be composed of clear glass, shaped to correct vision; however the idea was unworkable, since it would make blinking impossible.

In 1801, while conducting experiments concerning the mechanisms of accommodation, scientist Thomas Young constructed a liquid-filled "eyecup" which could be considered a predecessor to the contact lens. On the eyecup's base, Young fitted a microscope eyepiece. However, like da Vinci's, Young's device was not intended to correct refraction errors.

Sir John Herschel, in a footnote of the 1845 edition of the Encyclopedia Metropolitana, posed two ideas for the visual correction: the first "a spherical capsule of glass filled with animal jelly", and "a mould of the cornea" which could be impressed on "some sort of transparent medium". Though Herschel reportedly never tested these ideas, they were both later advanced by several independent inventors, seemingly unaware of Herschel's suggestion.

It was not until 1887 that the German physiologist Adolf Eugen Fick constructed and fitted the first successful contact lens. While working in Zürich, he described fabricating afocal scleral contact shells, which rested on the less sensitive rim of tissue around the cornea, and experimentally fitting them: initially on rabbits, then on himself, and lastly on a small group of volunteers. These lenses were made from heavy brown glass and were 18-21mm in diameter. Fick filled the empty space between cornea/callosity and glass with a grape sugar solution. He published his work, "Contactbrille", in the journal Archiv für Augenheilkunde in March 1888.

Fick's lens was large, unwieldy, and could only be worn for a few hours at a time. August Müller in Kiel, Germany, corrected his own severe myopia with a more convenient glass-blown scleral contact lens of his own manufacture in 1888.

Glass-blown scleral lenses remained the only form of contact lens until the 1930s when polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA or Perspex/Plexiglas) was developed, allowing plastic scleral lenses to be manufactured for the first time. In 1936 an optometrist, William Feinbloom introduced plastic lenses, making them lighter and more convenient.[7] These lenses were a combination, however, of both plastic and glass.

In the 1950s, the first 'corneal' lenses were developed--these were much smaller than the original scleral lenses, as they sat only on the cornea rather than across all of the visible ocular surface. PMMA corneal lenses became the first contact lenses to have mass appeal through the 1960s, as lens designs became more sophisticated with improving manufacturing (lathe) technology.

One important disadvantage of PMMA lenses is that no oxygen is transmitted through the lens to the cornea, which can cause a number of adverse clinical events. By the end of the 1970s, and through the 1980s and 1990s, a range of oxygen-permeable but rigid materials were developed to overcome this problem. Collectively, these polymers are referred to as 'rigid gas permeable' or 'RGP' materials or lenses. Although all the above lens types--sclerals, PMMA lenses and RGPs--could be correctly referred to as being 'hard' or 'rigid', the term 'hard' is now used to refer to the original PMMA lenses which are still occasionally fitted and worn, whereas 'rigid' is a generic term which can be used for all these lens types. That is, 'hard' lenses (PMMA lenses) are a sub-set of 'rigid' lenses. Occasionally, the term 'gas permeable' is used to describe RGP lenses, but this is potentially misleading, as soft lenses are also 'gas permeable' in that they allow oxygen to move through the lens to the ocular surface.

The principal breakthrough in soft lenses was made by the Czech chemist Otto Wichterle who published his work "Hydrophilic gels for biological use" in the journal Nature in 1959[8]. This led to the launch of the first soft (hydrogel) lenses in some countries in the 1960s and the first approval of the 'Soflens' material by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1971. These lenses were soon prescribed more often than rigid lenses, mainly due to the immediate comfort of soft lenses; by comparison, rigid lenses require a period of adaptation before full comfort is achieved. The polymers from which soft lenses are manufactured improved over the next 25 years, primarily in terms of increasing the oxygen permeability by varying the ingredients making up the polymers.

In 1999, an important development was the launch of the first 'silicone hydrogels' onto the market. These new materials encapsulated the benefits of silicone—which has extremely high oxygen permeability—with the comfort and clinical performance of the conventional hydrogels which had been used for the previous 30 years. These lenses were initially advocated primarily for extended (overnight) wear although more recently, daily (no overnight) wear silicone hydrogels have been launched.

Hope that helps.

Stymie said:

I know that wearing contacs can be frustrating at first, but stick with it. You'll get the hang of it. It took me about a week to be able to put them in too. Then I hear people say, "Ewww how can you wear contacts? I could NEVER stick anything into my eye!" I tell them, "Well, you do when your visions is as bad as mine!" I've worn contacts since I was 13 years old!

UCantHavaDaMango said:

8? Wow, and I thought I was young when I got contacts. You've got me beat.

I haven't worn contacts in 12 years! I stopped wearing them because of how frustrated I'd get from putting them in and having to clean them constantly. Glasses are so much more convenient, but since my vision has worsened I'm getting them on my next opto visit. There's nothing really cute about bifocals.

i've worn glasses since i was about 8...i just can't wear contacts. i don't the idea of poking at my eyes everyday just to put 'em in and the possibility of having one fall out at an inopportune time. besides, i like eyeglasses better anyway. they're sexy.

there sometimes, usually an up and down position in which they set on your eye. Like a top and a bottom. And if they are in, NOT inside out but in the wrong up and down position you vision will be blurry. Usually if you look closely there will be two small lines on either side. this indicates the 'sides' of the contacts. hope this helps!

HereToRockYourWorld said:

Yes maam. I do have astigmatism.

2the9s said:

I hate you with every fiber of my being.

I need to get a new perscription in my glasses. I don't even want new frames! I sure don't want contacts. Can't imagine having one fall out then just being blind for hours..

CinisterCee said:

As hard as it is to get them in, I doubt they would fall out.

CinisterCee said:

sorry

Stymie said:

good point

Stymie said:

then its likely also that if you look closely at you contact you will see almost like another circle in the form of a bubble, sort of like an egg yoke. this is the imortanppart that has to sit on your eye correctly. The 'egg yoke' likeley is slighlty off center. the area that it leans towards the most is the bottom. And you should try putting it in in this position. It doesnt have to be perfect because it is weighted to balance out in the eye. But for obvious reasons you do not want to put it in completely upside down or it wont balance out and your vision will be bljurry.

the lenses are to help you with things at a distance, not up close....don't hold the book so close to your face, or...buy a pair of reading glass..they'll help.

2the9s said:

It's a new week, so it's time for another brick for 9s...

purplerein said:

Thanks.

purplerein said:

Uh, no. If your normal glasses prescription helps you see up-close, contacts should too.

It can be tricky with astigmatism, though, I assume you've got toric lenses? I wonder if they aren't working right for you for some reason?

Handclapsfingasnapz said:

Yeah, my eyes never got used to 'em, so they were always dry, and I decided I look better with glasses anyway. They're supersexy. Indeed, nerdsexy.

HereToRockYourWorld said:

Actually, I don't have toric lenses, since the doctor says I only have a little astigmatism.

I have a follow-up appointment this week and if things arent groovy, I'm getting glasses again.

Stymie said:

Maybe you do actually need the torics.

Anyway, glasses are hot, so whateva.

I cannot wear those things!

Soon I am going to get Lasic Surgery.

sag10 said:

Me too! I need it so badly. Too bad it's so expensive.

Yep contacts are very convenient!!! You just have to get use to them being in your eyes and all. Soon you will forget that you even have contacts in your eyes!!! But if you get the disposable ones, after about two weeks of wearing them you must throw them away, if you prolong the use of the contacts after two weeks, it will definitely let your eyes know that the contacts are old. It will feel like dust particles are in your eyes and such.

Plus you have got to be careful in windy situations or driving with the windows down in a dusy area of town. The particles can mess with your eyes. There's nothing worse than something slipping inside the contact lens and scratching your eye up it's a terrible feeling, but a good learning experience

UCantHavaDaMango said:

I have the number of a dr. who will do it for two dolla an fifity cent.