Extended Wear Contact Lenses, Why They Are A Good Solution

Most contact lenses are worn only during the day and removed at night. The lenses are then either discarded if they are disposables or placed in a cleaning solution if they are standard reusable lenses. This is usually quite a good arrangement for most wearers and generally works well. Most people are happy to take out the lenses and prefer not wear them all the time.

Occasionally this can cause problems if the wearer perhaps after a long day at work falls asleep while still wearing the contact lenses. Of course some people prefer not to have the daily ritual of cleaning and replacing their contact lenses and would rather keep the frequency of this chore to a minimum.

The ideal solution, of, course is that they shouldn’t have to wear contact lenses at all and an increasingly popular option for those who would prefer this, is laser eye surgery. This has advanced very quickly in recent years and is now the first choice for many.

Not everybody however is keen on the idea of having surgery to his or her eyes. Even if the procedures are largely painless and have a high success rate, there are a lot of people that would rather not undergo surgery and would just like a less frequent and more convenient way of wearing contact lenses.

For those who would still prefer to wear contact lenses but without replacing them everyday extended wear contact lenses are a good solution. They enable the person to keep wearing the same contact lenses for anything between 7 days and a month.

Extended wear contact lenses have been available since the 80’s but were restricted to week long wearing by the FDA after some wearers seemed to be more prone to infection after wearing contact lenses for a month at a time.

These early problems however have been sorted out and although not recommended for everyone,
Extended wear contact lenses are now a much safer and better product. The main improvement has been that the lenses are now much more porous allowing oxygen to reach the eye. Although it is still better in the opinion of many optometrists to take your contact lenses out at night, for those who would prefer not too these, extended wear contact lenses now offer an acceptable solution.

Extended wear contact lenses are a very convenient in many situations such as at all night parties or when abroad, when you do not want the additional hassle of removing and cleaning your contact lenses every night. This is especially helpful when backpacking in foreign countries where supplies of contact lenses cleaners may not be readily available.

Camping trips are one area where extended wear contact lenses are ideal. Not only are there no lenses to clean (there probably wouldn’t be anywhere to clean them anyway), but you do not even need to make sure there are appropriate facilities, such as a mirror, to put them in the morning.

If you think that extended wear contact lenses would be a good idea, then the place to start is your local optometrist. They can give you all the advice you need to help you decide whether they would be right for you.

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