In Need of an Alternative to Contact Lenses
People who live an active lifestyle are often searching for an alternative to contact lenses. Contacts offer many benefits over glasses, but have many shortcomings of their own. They can cause discomfort, fall out, rip and many wearers experience contact lens intolerance. Unfortunately, those are just a few of the issues encountered by contact lens wearers.
The History of Contacts
Impressively, the famous Italian inventor Leonardo da Vinci illustrated the concept of contact lenses all the way back in 1508. He suggested that placing water directly in contact with the cornea could alter a person’s vision. It wasn’t for another 370 years, in the year 1887 that the first practical contact lens was designed out of glass and fitted to cover the entire eye. Eventually they would start making contacts out of hard plastic, then a soft hydrogel plastic and in the early 2000s contacts started being made from silicone. All of these advancements have made contact lenses more comfortable for the daily wearer, but they’re still far from perfect.
The Problem with Contact Lenses
There’s a whole list of problems with wearing contact lenses. For starters, they’re expensive; the lenses and solution add up over the course of a year. You likely have a story of a time a lens fell out and you couldn’t find it, leaving you in a precarious situation. How many times have you been out of town or on vacation to regrettably find out you’ve forgotten your solution or contact lens case? You go swimming and have to keep your head above water or you just take your chances with blurry vision. The list goes on.
The biggest pitfall for contacts is the fact that you have to take them out. Even with new “breathable” silicone and rigid gas-permeable materials, wearing contacts prevents oxygen from reaching your eyes, which can lead to a host of infections and complications like contact lens intolerance. Because of this, it’s usually recommended that contacts be removed before bed and reinserted in the morning; a daily ritual all too familiar with much of the blurry-eyed public.
It Gets Worse with Contact Lens Intolerance
Wearing contact lenses too long or not following the proper care instructions is one of the ways you could get contact lens intolerance. This condition is a catch-all term for people who are no longer able to apply a lens to their eyes without pain. Many people who have common refractive errors such as nearsightedness, farsightedness or astigmatism, and wear contacts, have experienced some form of contact lens intolerance.
It’s not uncommon for some people to no longer be able to wear contact lenses at all because of contact lens intolerance. This forces them to go back to wearing glasses, which for many is a huge annoyance. Fortunately there’s a solution.
The Solution to your Contact Lens Woes
For active individuals, glasses present some obvious limitations. As listed above, contact lenses also have their fair share of inconveniences and drawbacks. That’s why thousands of Canadians are choosing to undergo laser vision correction at LASIK MD every year!
Procedures like LASIK and PRK are a great alternative for people who are tired of wearing glasses and contacts. The procedures work by using a precise laser to reshape the eye’s cornea, correcting the refractive error. It takes 10 minutes, it’s painless and has been proven to be safer than the long-term use of contact lenses.
If you’re looking for an alternative to contacts then it’s worth taking a visit to your closest LASIK MD clinic for a free consultation.