Does anyone else on here wear contact lenses? I picked up my first pair from the opticians today (monthly wear). I find they're much better for reading music compared to glasses.

I've worn contact lenses since year eight, and I think they're absolutely fab! I do agree about them being far far easier for music than glasses, although I've learnt to switch between the two I love the feeling of coming home and taking them out too though, as convient as they are-it's like putting your slippers on, my mam always says! I don't know if you've ever worn them before, but I was honestly surprised at how fast I got used to them-I was quite happy with taking them out and putting them in after just a few days! Good luck with them

Thanks I absolutely love them. Just need to get used to putting them in (taking them out is not a problem).

I had the same problem, but it gets sooo much easier, far quicker than I expected!

Had them since I was 16!

I worked in my dad's office all summer to pay for them - they cost £77 and that was a fortune then. I'd had glasses since the age of 8 and every year the lenses got thicker and thicker and I HATED them. Getting contacts was one of the best things I ever did.

And I've never had a pair of glasses since (much to the displeasure of my optician) - just can't bear the thought of wearing glasses ever again.

When I went for my check-up recently I mentioned that I noticed I wasn't seeing very well out of one eye when I did a crossword - and he said, 'Oh, that's because that's your lens for distance vision'. I had no idea - one lens is for distance, one for close work - and the brain nicely slots the two together so you can see perfectly for both with the one pair of lenses!

Great stuff...

I wear monthly toric contact lenses...and I find them fab too! Putting them in did take a bit of getting used to - because mine are toric (for astigmatism) they have a larger diameter than standard lenses so it's lucky I have huge eyes I guess! I like the freedom they give from glasses, especially for going out at night and son on! Good luck

I tried toric lenses a little while ago, but they were too big for my eyes! They were just really uncomfortable-I must just have little eyes

Originally I wanted standard lenses but, rather embarrassingly, I couldn't see very well with them and the optician actually asked me if they had fallen out...! I think I get better vision with contacts than glasses actually, so it was well worth persevering

Oh goodness me, that does sound a tad embarassing I agree though, my vision is far better with lenses than glasses too

I'm so jealous of you all. I hate my glasses but I can't see the music with contacts in and the optician's just said that it's the best he can do.

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.

Hmm I know what you mean, not that I was able to get on with contact lenses, but when I had them in I was stumped for reading etc! I can remember being in a restaurant and had to get my friend to read the menu as I couldn't read a thing. At least with glasses you can take them off.

I must admit I long to have laser but the same problem will occur, I would need to put on glasses for all the close stuff and I expect that would include the piano and reading music, at the moment I wear intermediate glasses for these.

Was terrible at work today as I left my intermediate glasses at home, sitting by the piano. A last minute practice before going to work, on my way I was thinking wouldn't it be awful if I forgot my glasses - hmm, got to work and found that I didn't have them. Had to push the monitor away as far as I could and then hang my glasses off my nose to read what I needed to do!

It was terrible, got a really bad headache!

Can I ask what your prescription is? Would it be possible to have contact lenses for distance and normal vision but then wear a pair of reading glasses on top for close work? I do that - I wear contact lenses for short-sightedness but then when I am doing school work/near work I wear a pair of "reading glasses" as well to relieve eyestrain, to help prevent my prescription increasing any further. Apparently this is a hotly debated issue, but my optician seemed to think there was no harm in trying. Maybe it would be possible for you to do something similar, so then at least you could reduce the amount of time you wear glasses for?

I'm short sighted - can read a book comfortably without glasses. The big problem that they can't correct properly though is my astigmatism, They tried toric lenses but they weren't exact and after half an hour reading music I have a headache. My glasses make my vision perfect for all distances.

Sounds very familiar. I used to use lenses for sport (walking, climbing and skiing) but could never get on with them indoors. My eyes seemed to dry out very quickly. I'm now on pretty hefty varifocal specs and lenses don't seem to cut the mustard. I have recently tried some one day disposables for outdoors which would be ideal for sport and camping. Pop 'em in in the morning, chuck 'em out at night. The jury's out but since the topic has been raised, I think I have 1 sample pair left. I may use them this weekend.

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.

And younger ones too..... 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.

Keen patchwork quilt maker as well as a pianist, eh, Tom? You never cease to impress!

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.

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

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...

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

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! 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.

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

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!

I do. It only takes a second to take them out

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

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 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!)

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!

But in practice, it all seems to work out okay.

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.

I had rigid gas permeable lenses from age 19 to about 38. They were much better for correction (severe myopia like you, saxophile) but an absolute pain for getting grit and eyelashes etc stuck behind them. A few years ago I changed to daily use soft contacts and they are brilliant. They fit very closely so grit and dirt can't get in, they don't rub and there are no hygiene issues - no cleaning, rinsing and soaking, just take them out and throw them away, and have a clean fresh pair in the morning. Lovely!
And they work out cheaper than the gas permeables plus all the cleaning solutions.

Interesting to read other experiences. I've had hard contacts for many years, currently 18 hours p day and in the last year used reading glasses as well when needed. I've been recommended bifocal/multifocal lenses and am about to go and discuss this with the optician. Apparently you get a 2 month trial to see if they suit first. I'll have to see whether I can see in the distance, read music and a computer, and read and draw graphs on mm paper all with one pair. I'm not sure I want to always have multifocals in though because surely there are days when you don't have to read close up. I've heard that some people say that after a couple of months of wearing them, that their short sightedness has got a lot worse. Anyone tried multifocal contact lenses?

Never had a headache with mine - and, as I said, I wasn't even aware that this is what I had until two weeks ago!

Re bifocal contact lenses:

I think there are potentially 3 types:

- different prescriptions in each eye (as described by Cyrilla). I'd have thought these would have prejudiced binocular vision and might have caused problems judging distance eg. when driving

- each lens has several concentric rings, alternating with the 2 prescriptions. The idea here is your brain suppresses the set that it doesn't want to use at any point in time. Sadly my brain didn't, and everything looked blurred. This was about 15 years ago now though, and maybe science has moved on

- bifocals which are actually like bifocal glasses, with a different prescription in top and bottom. Not sure if these exist, but given that they can arrange it so the lenses stay the same way up (by making the material thicker / heavier at one side, which I believe they do to correct bad astigmatism), presumably they could do this for different prescriptions. But I haven't heard of them actually doing this.

I've been wearing (hard) contact lenses for nearly 40 years! I'm told that hard lenses actually give you better correction than soft ones - and they have improved over the years, being thinner and more comfortable. My optician says if you are happy with hard lenses, it would not be worth swapping to soft ones. The hygiene issues are less with hard lenses, as they don't form such an attractive meal for passing bacteria.

So I'm a reasonably happy customer, in fact until fairly recently a VERY happy customer - but now I have the problem mentioned by Mad Tom, needing reading glasses (I have varifocals which i wear on top of my lenses). And now I need ANOTHER set of glasses for playing the piano - I think these are the intermediate glasses mentioned by eldertom.

"Change and decay in all around I see ..."

But to a younger person I'd strongly recommend contacts.

PatC