You may be a person that has been wearing glasses for some time or you may realize that your vision needs to be corrected and are considering going to the eye doctor to find out if you can wear contacts. If so, take a few minutes to read about how contacts work and how to go about getting them.
A Little History
Contacts actually date back into the 19th century if you can believe it. The first ones were made of brown glass and were quite difficult to wear as you might imagine but they were helpful to people with particular eye problems that could not wear eyeglasses. Some significant breakthroughs in the 1940s and 1950s when plastic lenses were introduced. These new contacts were made of a hard plastic called polymethyl methacrylte, which did not allow gas like oxygen to pass through them. The better contacts that we have today are rigid gas permeable, which do allow oxygen to easily pass through them. This is important because the cornea of your eye needs oxygen from the air since it does not get oxygen from your blood.
We’ve seen in the last few years how contact lens technology is still improving. People that have astigmatism can now get toric contact lenses. And people that need bifocals can now get special contact lenses made, too.
Why Do People Wear Contacts?
People wear contact lenses for cosmetic advantages as well as:
* The lens moves with your eye and there is no distortion, unlike with glasses.
* Glasses frames can annoyingly block your side vision.
* Contacts don’t steam up like eyeglasses do when you go from cold to warm temperatures.
* Sometimes contact lenses are the only solution for people who need vastly different lenses for each eye.
* The protection of contacts can often help someone with an injured cornea.
So How Do You Get Contacts?
You should go see your eye care professional and get an eye exam and consultation. You cannot order contact lenses with a prescription for eyeglasses. It’s a much different kind of prescription that you need. You’ll go through some simple vision tests which only take about 10-15 minutes usually. You should also get tested for Glaucoma, if possible – that’s the test that Rachel on Friends didn’t like because it shoots a tiny puff of air into your eye. It’s really not that bad and its an important test to get.
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