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The only problem is I can't put them back in to save my life without blinking.
Any tips?
Any tips?
Hard contacts are not as readily available anymore. They are only really dispensed when I think you have some serious eye condition. They are not the most practical things as they can pop out of your eye without warning. They are also more expensive because you can't really buy them as a disposable lens like soft contacts. If you can buy them as a daily or weekly replacements, they are better because they are cleaner and you can dispose them when they become uncomfortable. I buy daily lenses but wear them for about a week. They are exactly the same lenses, just marketed differently. It does give you the option to throw them away when they start to irritate your eyes. Monthly or yearly, you are pretty much stuck with them for a month or a whole year.Originally Posted by sephoras girl /img/forum/go_quote.gif
Thanks I'm going to try the tips you guys gave me.
By the way, which is better Hard or soft contacts?
There is only really 1 way to make contact lenses. It is a marketing ploy regarding longer term lenses over dailies. After 24 years of wearing contacts, it used to just be 1 year lenses. I got my first pair when I was in Grade 11. You need to use protein enzymes to get rid of protein build up on your lenses. This is done on a weekly basis. You also need to disinfect your lenses with hydrogen peroxide. The All-in-1 solutions have disinfectant and enzymes now. If you don't use all in 1 solution, you'll still need to use protein enzymes on longer use lenses. I have had yearly contact lenses that tore in half while it was in my eye. Since I only have 1 pair (because its suppose to last a whole year) I'm stuck with wearing glasses until I can re-order another pair. When it became uncomfortable to wear, you would use the protein enzyme.Originally Posted by Annelle /img/forum/go_quote.gif
There are pro's and con's to dailies and permanent lenses.
Hard lenses were more for people with astigmatism. Because the lenses are actually shaped to your eye, they always stay right side up. Because the lens is hard and the eye is soft, you can also mold your eye to be more "circular" (although this effect is not permanent, it can last at least a few months) which can help make your astigmatism not as strong.
Back in the day, the only lenses possible for people with astigmatism were hard lenses. They were a LOT clearer than my glasses and a LOT clearer than my soft lenses, but they weren't as comfortable. You can feel them in your eyes and see them shift whenever you blink. After about 10-30 minutes your brain "forgets" to feel them, and you learn to ignore the blinking. They didn't really pop out at random times, but it could still be unexpectedly. The way you take out a hard lens is to kind of...snap it out. You pull on the side of your eyes to kind of force a really quick squint and it pops out. So if you do a similar action (like looking to the side really quickly or blink really hard suddenly) it could pop out. They could break if you put too much pressure on them, which soft lenses don't do (soft lenses can tear).
Astigmatism is actually a quite common occurrence in people, but they've got soft lenses available for them now. I had exceptionally high levels of astigmatism, but I think they actually made weeklies by the time I had my PRK surgery last year. (The weeklies were too weak for me, but the existence of them means they've come a long way since I first started wearing contacts. Soft lenses were not even an option for me when I first started!) The bottom part of the soft lens is actually weighted now to help keep the lens "right side up". (a normal lens is exactly the same all the way around, but a lens for astigmatism is more like a cats eye football shape, and then the direction of the cats eye is different on eyes...so one eye might be the cats eye shape up and down, and one might be at a 45 degree angle, either way, if the lens spins, the prescription no longer fits, so it needs to stay in the right position).
The problem with soft lens is that the weight makes up for the spinning by helping to hold it into place, but it's not perfect. The hard lens will attach to your eye based on its shape and not move or spin. If you have weak astigmatism, you won't notice it so much, but if it's horrible like mine, then you notice if it moves half of a degree. (my doc suggested my surgery since I was so sensitive to whenever the contacts would move, which was every few minutes.)
Long term lenses are made with higher quality materials that resist protein build up. Because of this, you won't have a lot of protein that builds up from day to day use. Daily lenses are made from cheaper materials that don't resist protein build up as much and aren't made to be able to withstand as many washings. (Daily contacts aren't meant to be washed since they're intended for disposal after one use) They can be more uncomfortable because of this, especially after a long day of wear, but you don't have to worry about cleaning, losing, tearing, or anything cause you just toss them at the end of the day.
As far as wearing, just to re-iterate what people said. Clean hands helps prevent stuff getting into the eyes. Dry hands helps prevent the lens from attaching to your finger. A drop actually inside the lens helps to pull the lens to your eyeball once the liquid touches your eye. Like I said, I always used two hands (probably since blinking caused the hard lenses to pop out, so you want to make complete sure that you don't blink for the hard lenses), one to hold the eye open, and the other to touch the lens to my eye. all good advice.
Originally Posted by sephoras girl /img/forum/go_quote.gif
The only problem is I can't put them back in to save my life without blinking.
Any tips?
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