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Contact lenses are a great alternative to glasses. Many people who live an active lifestyle have enjoyed the ease and convenience of contacts now for many years. Today, there is an extensive choice to best fit your need.
Contacts now have so many options; it may seem a bit overwhelming to find the right pair for you. In truth, there are a few things you should know when shopping for contacts. But when done right, you will find much better prices and varieties than your optometrist could provide.
After a visit to your eye doctor, you can ask for a prescription of your eyes. This little sheet of paper will tell you everything you want to know about the shape, size, and power of your eyes. First, you will need to decipher the abbreviations on your prescription
PWR: this is the strength in diopters your new lenses must have in order to sharpen your sight to an acceptable level.
BC: Known as back curvature, this number indicates the shape of your cornea and helps with overall fit and comfort.
DIA: The distance in milliliters across your contact lenses
CYL: For those of you with astigmatism, this measures how advanced it is.
AXIS: Also for astigmatism patients, this helps the contacts correct the oval shape of your cornea.
ADD: For bifocal users, this will show the additional strength in the section of your contacts used for reading or close viewing.
COLOR: If you have chosen contacts that will enhance or change your eye color, your desired color will be shown here.
BRAND: If your doctor has prescribed a certain brand for you, in most cases, retailers are required to sell you only that brand.
Now that you know what your prescription means, you can now shop for the best contacts for you, there are some things to note though. After talking to your doctor, you should be aware if you need soft or gas permeable contacts.
Soft contacts are quite common and take less time for your eyes to adjust to. Because they contain anywhere from 25% to 79% water, they are more comfortable but less durable. Some also allow you to sleep in them. Soft contacts are generally replaced more often than gas permeable lenses. The life expectancy of soft contacts vary from once a day to once every few months. This factor depends on upkeep and how sensitive your eyes are.
Gas permeable lenses are made from a rigid silicone which is considerably more durable and longer lasting. In the long run, gas permeables are slightly more expensive up front but less expensive over time since one pair will last a couple of years compared to soft contacts lasting an average of around a month.
A new craze today is color changing or enhancing contacts. Some people add this feature to their already existing prescription and some even buy them simply for decoration. Color can come in a variety of intensities.
Tinted contacts have a visible tint meant to enhance the natural color of your eyes. this type looks best on light colored eyes.
Color tints have an opaque solid color pattern around the center of the lens which can dramatically change eye color. The color pattern is based off of natural color occurrences in the iris. The center is clear so you can see. These lenses come in colors such as blue, hazel, green, and even violet.
Costume tints have been used in movies for special eye effects and are now available to the general public. Options include white-out, spiral, cheetah, and alien. These are obviously not for everyone.
With this information, shopping for the best contacts can be a fun and rewarding experience. You are almost guaranteed a better price and more ease than conventional ordering from your optometrist. The best way to find the best prices is to browse around and compare prices. Be careful of scammers and stay with reliable companies.
Contact lens manufacturers constantly work on improving contact lenses. The goal is to produce lenses that you can wear all day long without any danger or discomfort to your eyes. Contact lens quality has seriously improved over the last few years. See how modern contact lenses can help your eyes to feel and see better.
30 days wear contact lenses
How would you like to put your contact lenses in your eyes in the morning and not worrying about them for the next 30 days? Sounds almost too good to be true, but there are contacts that you can safely wear for a month.
Most contact lenses can be worn for no longer than 8-10 hours in a row because the lens blocks the flow of oxygen to your eyes. This can cause irritation and promote bacterial infection.
However, the new generation of lenses, made from a different material (silicone hydrogel lenses), have much higher oxygen permeability. For example, Focus Day and Night lets through 6 times more oxygen than conventional contacts. With more oxygen reaching your eyes, wearing contact lenses for 30 days becomes a safe option.
There are two lenses that are FDA approved for continuous wear for up to 30 days - Focus Night and Day by Ciba Vision and Pure Vision by Bausch & Lomb.
The downside of extended wear contacts is that if you live or work in a dusty or smoky environment, tiny particles will get into your eyes, so the lenses won't feel comfortable for several days.
Silicon-hydrogel contacts
Discomfort and dry eyes are constant complaints among contact lens wearers. Contact lens manufacturers worked very hard on developing lenses that don't dry your eyes, even by the end of the day. The result of this research is silicon hydrogel contact lenses. You can wear them from the early morning till midnight and they feel comfortable all day long.
One of the most successful silicone hydrogel contacts is new Acuvue Oasis. It is made of senofilcon A, which is a new silicone hydrogel material that - according to the manufacturer - is 50 percent smoother than other silicone hydrogel contacts. There is also a special moisture-rich wetting agent, called Hydraclear Plus, for additional comfort.
Another comfortable silicon hydrogel contact lens is O2Optix. It is a 2 week disposable lens which you can occasionally leave in overnight. O2Optix is also quite affordable - especially if you buy it online with a discount.
1 day disposable contact lenses
Even though cleaning contact lenses takes only a minute, many people find it a hassle. Now, when the production costs of contact lenses has significantly decreased, daily disposable contacts have become affordable and very popular.
Daily disposable lenses have a number of advantages:
The majority of contact lens manufacturers have lines of daily disposable contacts. The most popular disposable lenses are 1 Day Acuvue and Focus Dailies.
If you are generally happy with the lenses you wear now, but wish for even more comfort and less hassle, ask your doctor if he or she can switch you to daily disposable contacts from the same brand.
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Color contact lenses - the most popular contacts on the market
Did you ever think that you can kill two birds with one stone, and change your eye color while correcting your vision? If you have to wear contact lenses anyway, try color contacts. Recently developed color contact lenses can give you a vivid, yet natural, look.
You can get two types of color contacts - enhancement color lenses, which are half transparent and designed to enrich your natural color; and opaque lenses, which can change your color completely, even if you have dark eyes.
Modern color contacts even come as 2 week and 1 month disposables.
The most popular color lens collections are:
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