Contact Lenses Options

[BerkshireMum]

For the short-sighted contact lenses are much better for most things UNTIL you reach the age where you start to lose the ability to focus on things close up. I wore them for years, but in my late 40's I returned to wearing specs', for the convenience of being able to slide them down my nose (or lift them completely) to read the fine print on labels, thread needles etc.

I wore them for years too, until I developed a blocked tear duct, when wearing a lens in that eye became quite painful and I reverted to glasses. The NHS being what it is, I ended up waiting for quite a while for the op, during which time I got very used to wearing glasses. It was very nice never to get a piece of grit/mascara under a contact lens, and never to flip it out by blinking with the eye at the wrong angle (I always had hard contacts).

After the op for the duct (and a period for healing) I was told I could go back to contacts, but somehow I never did! I was about 47 then, so perhaps the things Mad Tom mentions were beginning to kick in too. But if I'm honest, I mostly wore them for vanity when I was younger, and now I just accept that it's OK for older ladies to wear glasses.

[Tequila]

...... But if I'm honest, I mostly wore them for vanity when I was younger, and now I just accept that it's OK for older ladies to wear glasses.

And younger ones too..... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) It's actually quite "cool" now to wear glasses as I found out much to my relief when my daughter started wearing them at age 5.

[madbassoonist]

...... But if I'm honest, I mostly wore them for vanity when I was younger, and now I just accept that it's OK for older ladies to wear glasses.

And younger ones too..... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) It's actually quite "cool" now to wear glasses as I found out much to my relief when my daughter started wearing them at age 5.

Hmmm. I wore glasses starting from Year 4. I started wearing contact lenses in September, having decided that it would make me 'stand out' less at school. It has actually worked a little bit, I get fewer 'nerd/geek' comments, but hasn't made me as invisible as I had hoped.

[Solari]

thread needles etc.

Keen patchwork quilt maker as well as a pianist, eh, Tom? You never cease to impress! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Susie]

My 2 children are enthusiastic contact lens wearers, but I think I must have a phobia about eyes, because my son used to sit at the kitchen table originally when he was learning to put the contact lenses in, and I had to go out of the room while he was doing it!!

However, I am very grateful to those who've developed the lightweight thin lenses that I can now have in my specs - my lenses are now about half the thickness that they used to be which is brilliant.

[Roseau]

I have worn contact lenses for about fifteen years and am both short-sighted and astigmatic. For some reason both seemed to develop in my late twenties (whereas I thought astigmatism was something you always had). I found glasses hard to get used to and also develpped contact eczema on the bridge of my nose (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ph34r.gif)

I do have glasses which I wear in the morning before I put my lenses in, but rarely otherwise. The correction for my lenses is not quite the same as the one for my glasses which is apparently not uncommon. In France you always see a trained ophtalmologist rather than an optician so possibly they are better at getting corrections "spot on."

I find my vision is much better with the lenses - it is a sort of "all round" vision without the frames getting in the way but I am getting near the age when long sight is likely to become a problem...

[Mad Tom]

thread needles etc.

Keen patchwork quilt maker as well as a pianist, eh, Tom? You never cease to impress! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Unfortunately not. Nothing more complicated than replacing a button on a coat or shirt back in the days when I was an itinerant contractor.

[DaisyChain]

I started wearing glasses as a child aged five after a bad bout of Measles. They were only meant to be corrective until the age of 12! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/happy.gif) In my thirties I was working as a nurse in a medium secure unit where patient behaviours meant that my glasses were being broken or twisted out of shape fairly regularly. I decided to try for contact lenses instead.

I can wear them for about twelve hours before I need to take them out. After that time, my eyes feel tired.

I use the soft toric type which I change for a new pair on a monthly basis.

I've (so far!) never had any trouble with them.

[Mad Tom]

To add to the confusion, there is such a thing as dual focus contact lenses for older short-sighted people. These are effectively two lenses in one. (Don't ask me to explain the physics). One focal length corrects for your distance vision, just like a standard pair of glasses, the other gives you close vision for reading. Apparently your eyes can learn to switch instantly between the two focal lengths. This overcomes the problem that most of us oldies face with ordinary lenses - that if we can see clearly in the distance then we can't read anything closer than arms-length.

That is the theory anyway. When I tried them I just felt permanently disorientated. But they might work well for some of you.


I still keep a few normal contacts for the occasional game of soccer or tennis ... but that seems to have become merely a theoretical possibility ... I am such an old wreck now that I never get asked to play 5-a-side or doubles any more

[Cyrilla]

To add to the confusion, there is such a thing as dual focus contact lenses for older short-sighted people. These are effectively two lenses in one. (Don't ask me to explain the physics). One focal length corrects for your distance vision, just like a standard pair of glasses, the other gives you close vision for reading. Apparently your eyes can learn to switch instantly between the two focal lengths. This overcomes the problem that most of us oldies face with ordinary lenses - that if we can see clearly in the distance then we can't read anything closer than arms-length.

Er...I think this is what I was trying to describe that I have, earlier!

As I said, I didn't realise these are what I have until the optician told me..very clever stuff!

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[destinybone]

I do. It only takes a second to take them out (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[eldatom]

To add to the confusion, there is such a thing as dual focus contact lenses for older short-sighted people. These are effectively two lenses in one. (Don't ask me to explain the physics). One focal length corrects for your distance vision, just like a standard pair of glasses, the other gives you close vision for reading. Apparently your eyes can learn to switch instantly between the two focal lengths. This overcomes the problem that most of us oldies face with ordinary lenses - that if we can see clearly in the distance then we can't read anything closer than arms-length.

That is the theory anyway. When I tried them I just felt permanently disorientated. But they might work well for some of you.


I still keep a few normal contacts for the occasional game of soccer or tennis ... but that seems to have become merely a theoretical possibility ... I am such an old wreck now that I never get asked to play 5-a-side or doubles any more

I know I was offered one distance and one close up to wear at the same time, I didn't think that I would be able to adjust having one eye seeing distance and the other eye close, it sounded like a recipe for a headache to me.

Old wreck, you forget that you are younger than me, only just though! I am still playing tennis (well just about when my knees let me) don't know about the 5 a side though as I have never been able to do that! lol

[Maizie]

I used to have contact lenses. Well, actually, a contact lens. Trouble was, I could see perfectly without it - just with it I got proper binocular vision. So bascially I would only use it one day a week, on my driving lesson day (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) The optician said this was fine.

Some years later as my eyes worsened I went up to needing lenses in both eyes, but I told the optician that as I was totally lazy, I just wouldn't bother. So please could I have glasses? It was touch-and-go, due to the nature of my eye problem (with glasses, the lenses were potentially too far away). But it turned out to be fine.

The thing for me at that time was that I could get up in the morning, shove my glasses on, and be done. No faffing with various bits of rinsing before you could put them in, and then taking them out at night and dobbing on this, rinsing, dobbing on that, rinsing, soaking in this that or the other, etc.
I know contact lenses have moved on and so are probably better for the lazy like me now! But I am happy with glasses (especially my current ones, as they are now five years old, and I don't think I've ever had the same prescription for that long before!)

[Misterioso]

I know I was offered one distance and one close up to wear at the same time, I didn't think that I would be able to adjust having one eye seeing distance and the other eye close, it sounded like a recipe for a headache to me.

Actually, it's surprising how quickly you can get used to this. My OH has a prescription like this. For myself, having had cataract surgery a few years ago, I chose to have one of the new, artificial lenses for close work and the other for distance. But, complicated as it was by astigmatism, the surgeon got the prescription wrong in one eye (no, it can't be undone!) so I now have a contact lens to shorten the sight in one eye, reading glasses for when I'm not wearing it, glasses with the right focal length for music when I am wearing it, and glasses for driving. My last trip to the optician was horrifically expensive! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wacko.gif)

But in practice, it all seems to work out okay. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[saxophile]

I used to have contact lenses. Well, actually, a contact lens. Trouble was, I could see perfectly without it - just with it I got proper binocular vision. So bascially I would only use it one day a week, on my driving lesson day (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) The optician said this was fine.

Some years later as my eyes worsened I went up to needing lenses in both eyes, but I told the optician that as I was totally lazy, I just wouldn't bother. So please could I have glasses? It was touch-and-go, due to the nature of my eye problem (with glasses, the lenses were potentially too far away). But it turned out to be fine.

The thing for me at that time was that I could get up in the morning, shove my glasses on, and be done. No faffing with various bits of rinsing before you could put them in, and then taking them out at night and dobbing on this, rinsing, dobbing on that, rinsing, soaking in this that or the other, etc.
I know contact lenses have moved on and so are probably better for the lazy like me now! But I am happy with glasses (especially my current ones, as they are now five years old, and I don't think I've ever had the same prescription for that long before!)

I'm in this camp. I have severe myopia and wore (rigid gas permeable) contact lenses from age 17 to age 31. I finally switched back to wearing glasses all the time when I had my second son because contacts were just such a faff with a small baby. Plus I got fed up with always getting bits of this and that in my eye - going out on a windy day was a recipe for watering, sore eyes and having to find a sheltered corner out of the wind where I could remove, rewet and reinsert the lens. I wouldn't go back to contacts now.