About 3 out of 4 adults in today’s society need vision correction of some kind. If you don’t need it at the moment, there’s a good chance you will in the not-so-distant future. Should you get contact lenses? Maybe. Should you get glasses? Maybe not. Should you use both? Read on to find out…! Everyone is different. That’s a fact. However, whether you decide to wear glasses or contact lenses usually comes down to 3 key factors:
- How you live
- What you want to look like and…
- What your budget is
How do you live?
Do you lead a busy life? Thought so. There’s not many people who don’t now-a-days. With contact lenses, you can reach for these first-thing in the morning, put them in your eyes and not worry about them for the rest of the day. Excellent! With glasses you are subjected to wearing crafted hunks of plastic or metal on your face for every waking hour, with the risk they could fall off and break at any moment. “Hey, woah there, glasses aren’t that bad are they!?” Yes, you’re right, glasses aren’t that bad at all, in fact, we’re pretty partial to a good looking pair of specs fitted to the right person. But, the fact still stands, with glasses it is possible that at any stage during the day, they could tip off the end of your nose and shatter on the ground in front of you. This, however, is more likely to happen to those of us who have a bustling lifestyle. If you’re more akin to desk-sitting for the better part of the day, sure, glasses are going to be a solid contestant in the contacts vs. glasses argument. Of course, it is only fair to admit that you can lose contact lenses if you’re not careful when putting them in. Contacts do take a little bit of time to look after. Every night before bed you have to take the lenses out of your eye and carefully place them in solution to store them (or chuck them out if they’re dailies) while your eyes get some rest. Basically, this is just to ensure that your eyes get enough oxygen in order to work properly. Actually, that’s not quite accurate, not all contacts take time to look after… There are such a thing as ‘Extended Wear’ contact lenses. These contacts are approved to be worn continuously for a certain number of days and nights so that you don’t have to worry about taking them out. There’s plenty of option when it comes to extended wear contacts, the technology has been around for a while now and most manufacturers have latched on to it. Glasses can offer some protection from the elements. If you’re exposed to dust and wind during your daily routine, glasses will be an advantage here. Alternatively, you can just reach for that ol’ pair of sunnies or safety glasses if you wear contact lenses.
How do you want to look?
Different people have different ideas about style and I’m hardly one to comment, so I’ll try to state the facts rather than my opinion! It is worth mentioning that you can be one who either ‘cares’ or ‘doesn’t care’ what you look like – as far as glasses or contacts are concerned. If you’re in the ‘doesn’t care’ category, perhaps you could skip this section and go straight on to reading the next one. Now, for those of you left reading, if you go for contact lenses, no matter what outfit you are wearing, they will always match. On the other hand, if you buy a navy pair of glasses, they may not always suit. In this instance, you can choose to buy more pairs of glasses, but your budget may not allow it. If you want to maintain your natural look, contact lenses are going to be good for you. Glasses will detract from the natural look of your face. If you are a bit unsure how you might look in glasses, contact lenses are your friend. If you’d rather express your personality and style, glasses are an excellent way to do this. There are so many options when it comes to style, colour, material and so forth that you’ll be able to spend days examining the options and getting the right one for you.
What’s your budget?
I’d like to be able to say outright that glasses or contacts are definitely cheaper or more expensive than the alternative, but I can’t. You could argue that glasses are going to be less expensive, in the long-term, than contacts because you only have to purchase them once, whereas contact lenses will need to be replaced. As I mentioned before, there is still the possibility that your $500 pair of Ray-Bans could break leaving you with another hefty bill to pay. If you take in to account the fact that you may need multiple pairs of glasses to go with certain outfits, then this will ultimately swing the balance the other way too. Along with this, your eyesight may get better or worse over time. If you were buying contact lenses, that’s no problem, next time round, just get another prescription – easy! If you’ve got glasses, it’s could cost you a bit to get the glasses redone.
Something else to consider…
If none of the factors in the above paragraphs were enough to persuade your mind one way or the other, why not go for a compromise? Have glasses for the times when you need glasses and save your contacts for when you play sport (or whatever the case is), this is a fairly common practice out there today. Tip: If you’re wearing contact lenses intermittently, purchase daily-wear lenses (i.e lenses that are used for one day then disposed of). Hopefully by now you have drawn a conclusion in your mind. As I mentioned at the start, everyone is different so based on that I’ll leave it up to you from here!
Published: Mon, September 17, 2018
0 comments