Glasses or contacts?

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I had worn contacts for years, but the air in my office is very dry. I was constantly using drops and feeling miserable. So I went back to glasses. Now I have to deal with no peripheral vision, foggy lenses and raindrops--not to mention switching back and forth between my Rx sunglasses when I am running in and out of stores.

I'm frustrated with both, but uneasy about the whole laser surgery movement.

Which do you prefer, and why?

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2001

Answers

I hate glasses but I can never afford contacts. I have scratched every pair of glasses I've ever owned, even after I pay for the scratch proof coating. Unfortunately, I also lose contacts down the drain.

I just want new eyes.

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2001


I try contacts every fews years, but always end up back with glasses after a few months - either pollen in the air makes my eyes itch, or something else will happen where I have to take a break for a day or two and just never go back.

This last time, I got fed up with having to apply eyedrops during the day with makeup on. Ouch.

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2001


Are you all trying the disposable soft lenses? They are a godsend, and I wear them 14 to 16 hours a day sometimes without any trouble. You don't have to do anything to clean them -- just put them in that Express One solution overnight in their little case and voila, next day, perfectly clean. After a couple of weeks (I confess, I usually end up wearing mine for more, like 3 or 4 weeks because they still feel terrific and I forget), you just throw them away. One year's prescription is almost the same as buying one regular-wear soft contact set, so it's not more expensive.

Do I sound evangelical about this? Sorry. But I've worn glasses since I was two, had eye surgery when I was five, and went from far-sighted (almost legally blind) to near-sighted now. (Crossed eyes, very strange, doctors still are confused.) (My eyes improved so much after the surgery that by the time I was 17, I had, for one year, perfect vision, and then I started drifting toward near-sighted. Luckily, it's not horrific.) I loathed the glasses for that peripheral vision problem, Julie -- I was in three different car accidents (others' faults) because I didn't see them running (a) a red light or (b) stop sign and in the case of (c) getting real industrius and shooting out of a parking lot, crossing two lanes of bumper-to-bumper traffic because someone motioned them through only to come at me from the side when I couldn't see them merging through all the cars. oy. After contacts -- whew, no more accidents.

I've thought about the surgery, but I can't bring myself to do it, though I've had friends who have and who love the results.

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2001


As soon as I was told I have bad eyes, back when I was a fetus, I refused to wear anything but contacts because glasses were too annoying, and only dorks wore them. Unfortunately, my mother would only spring for glasses, and I had to save my own money for the contacts.

There was this really terrible year in junior high where I forced to wear huge brown tinted plastic things because I couldn't afford contacts and my mother wouldn't let me pick out my own glasses. These monstrosihideousies were on sale, I think. And I couldn't just go without because I'd walk into walls and closets. And if I 'accidentally' broke them, she would have deliberately broken me into thirds. I had no friends that year.

After 10 or more years fucking around with contacts and losing them and having burning, itching stinging eyes and that attractive "crack addict slash dope fiend" look (does anyone remember the Sweet Valley High book where you knew someone or other's boyfriend was a no-good pothead because he had red, irritated eyes?) and hating washing them every night, I finally said fuck it. I picked out a pair of funky glasses, and I've stuck with them for awhile now. For the longest, I experienced this giddy sense of freedom every time I realized "wow! I don't have to do anything at all but take them off! And I can just drop them anywhere at all!" It was a joy.

The only problem is that just about every hipster geek boy I've ever met wears funky black glasses. Every one of them. I went to a barbecue last week where all the boys were wearing my glasses. All of them. Same glasses. I was very upset. Now I'm thinking, like, "Sally Jesse red" for my next pair.

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2001


yes, toni, mine were the disposible kind. I really think part of my frustrations have to do with the air in my office. another coworker and I are kind of secluded in an add-on part of the office and I just don't think the circulation is all that good. at my last job, I could wear them 3-4 weeks. now I can bearly stand 2.

plus I stare at the computer all day long (graphic designer) and tend to fall asleep on the train. both of which make my contacts dry and icky.

I was wearing computer glasses over my contacts to help with eyestrain. my doctor was concerned about me looking through a strong Rx while doing so much close-up work. now that I am wearing my glasses, I worry about how that's going to affect my vision.

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2001



I canNOT handle sticking anything in my eye. At all. The one time I tried contacts it took two people and a half hour to get one of them in. I hate those new humongous, bigger-than-my-eyeball ones everyone has to wear now because they make me even more squeamish than the plop-'em hard ones my mom had when I was growing up. (Then again, her eyes are scarred and dry now and she can never wear contacts again.) At any rate, I also tend to rub my eyes when stuff blows in and am already headache-prone, and I've heard headache-proneness gets a lot worse with contacts.

Generally I'm perfectly fine with glasses, except for (a) when they break (b) they sure seem to get dirty a lot (c) the nerd reputation I have and (d) they just don't look good with formal wear.

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2001


I do the disposable contacts for 2 weeks. Try Acuve 2, Julie. I have a lot of scar tissue on my corneas from 3 different bouts of having holes in my cornea. I can only wear contacts with really high water content so they are lighter and less prone to be sticky/dry. I used to have to order them special but then Acuve 2 disposals came out and they are perfect. Although by the end of the 2nd week I've noticed that the edge gets all wavy and weird.

Once I've lost this weight and no longer have a big, fat round moon face I want to get glasses. I want an option for the days I'm too tired to wear contacts or I just want to look different.

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2001


jen, I totally empathize on the glasses. My mom and dad didn't have the money (or the inclination, really) to splurge on nice fashionable glasses, and my dad was enamored of these light blue cat-eyed glasses. Which would probably be all the rage now, but I cannot tell you how I wanted to completely disappear off the planet. Everyone made fun of them. And every year, when my prescription changed, I'd beg for new ones, but they thought the old style looked great. Finally, when I was in eighth grade, they relented and let me pick out a new style... and I went overboard the other direction and picked out these big, clunky frames, the kind where there are two bridges across the nose with a space in between? My reward? All the kids went from calling me "four-eyes" to "five-eyes." (You would know that when I get out of school, glasses became fashionable.) (Oh, and how evil is this... one of the worst offenders has a child who has to wear glasses. Now, I feel bad for the kids, but can I tell you that I felt like some sort of karmic justice had been done?) (bad toni, smack, bad toni)

julie -- oh, yeah, the rubbing and the air. Know what you mean. I do that too, but I'm the first to admit that my eyes are so desensitized from all the drops and the surgery and what-have-you that I can rub the suckers with the contacts in and they don't bother me. But air blowing directly in my face will dry them out. I use the Acuvue 2 as well. Dunno that this would make a difference for you, though -- sounds like glasses are the only fix for staring at the computer all day.

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2001


When I moved from sea-level, humid Connecticut to Colorado, my eyes were left high and dry, literally, for contacts. I went from year- long dailies through two-month and two-week disposables and if I used dailies now, I would never admit it, because I think it's shockingly wasteful, full of packaging, sneers in the face of people who can't afford glasses at all, and excessive. I have *heard*, not that I would know myself, that dailies are much more comfortable because they have a higher water content and allow for more air circulation even than two-weeklies, and protein or calcium buildups are never a problem.

I go back and forth between contacts and glasses, wearing glasses when I can because contacts are expensive and they do tire my eyes. About a dry office, if drops and a personal humidifier (I just invented that) don't help, and you know the air quality is passable, weigh the advantages of each. Maybe you don't have to wear them to the office, but could put them in at the gym, or on days you have to run errands in the rain?

And I hate the whole two pairs of glasses things too! Could you use those clip-ons? Lotsa people say they're not as annoying as you might think peering through two lenses' worth of grime and smudges might be.

Jen, *my* favorite SVH scenario was when Elizabeth decided to reform the ugly duckling. This was a rehashed Brady Bunch plot. Marcia and Elizabeth each ask their horn- rimmed chick if about contacts, and the chick says sure, but what good would *they* do? This cracks me up, because of course we're all supposed to identify with the plots and characters--especially in SVH (or maybe it was a Sweet Dreams book, Melissa, do you remember?)--and there cannot be a sole teenaged girl in the entire country who hates her glasses and thinks she's ugly but who "just wouldn't bother" about contacts until our heroine Marcia or Elizabeth set her straight.

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2001


I think you all might have a point. I haven't changed brands for a few years. maybe it's time to try something new. I am definitely going to bring this up the next time I go to the eye doctor. I think my brother uses acuvue, too, and has good luck.

it sounds like it might be time for a change. thanks!

-- Anonymous, July 19, 2001



I really really really prefer contacts, both because my vision is so bad that glasses leave me with no peripheral vision, and because it is so bad that strong-enough glasses shrink my eyeballs to little squinty pig eyes... at least in my opinion. But, I too moved to Colorado from a nice wet sea-level place and when I first moved here I could not wear contacts at all. I've been here a while now, and am better acclimated, and drink more water, and could probably go back to wearing them... but things keep popping up that are more important than either of us getting new eye wear. So I am wearing my old scratched-up glasses that only give me about 17/20 (they weren't important when I wore contacts regularly, since I only wore my glasses about 2 hours a day) - one of these days, I tells ya....

-- Anonymous, July 19, 2001

I have tried contacts twice, and they have dried out in my eyes after about a half hour and no amount of drops would "re-wet" them enough to make them tolerable. I ran screaming back to my glasses both times.

HOWEVER - they were not the disposable kind, they were the kind you keep, well, forever. Maybe I should try disposables. Even though I don't cotton totally to the Lisa Houlihan theory of "no glasses with earrings because the head should have only one accessory at a time", I do think that glasses and earrings AND a headband is carrying it too far.

(and it was a SVH book, Lisa, when Elizabeth tried to makeover Robin Wilson. I am almost ashamed that I know that.)

-- Anonymous, July 19, 2001


Mine is not an objection to accessories, but just that I like people's faces.

Confession, and a mental image for your pleasure: In high school I found this corduroy cap I thought was just the Thing- -I must have been in 10th grade, because my sister wasn't home to correct me, and the mall, where I would have found it, just had opened. I wore that plus headphones (1984, when all headphones did the over-head thing), plus my big plastic-framed glasses (I repeat, 1984), plus, since I got my ears pierced that year, dangling New Wavey earrings. Oh, and braces, top and bottom. Oh, and my mother still determined my haircut, so my hair was all over my forehead and ears. I am not at all sure any skin showed at all.

-- Anonymous, July 19, 2001


I've had glasses since I was 16 (and needed them since before that), and never seriously contemplated contacts. Why? Item 1. I am a klutz. More than that, I'm an absentminded klutz. I lose things. I drop things. I break things. I would wash contacts down the sink in ten seconds flat. They did not have disposables when I was a kid, but that doesn't matter so much, because: Item 2. I can't afford them. Glasses are about $200 every year or two. Contacts are considerably more than that for a year, even the disposable once-every-two-weeks, etc etc, when I last looked. Item 3. I have a weird prescription - quite strong. Not as weird as my guy's (he has a very strange astigmatism), and less weird in contacts than glasses because they can just give you two that don't match instead of having to grind two lenses very, very differently, but still. Item 4. I like the way my face looks in glasses far better than how it looks without them. I know, this makes me a freak, but it's true. I pick really big, round frames both because I like how they look and because I hate, hate, hate having small lenses. What is it with the new trend to make glasses the size of quarters? I get a headache if I try to work with a field of vision that small (very strong prescription - the uncorrected and corrected images are two different sizes, and it messes up my brain to switch between them too fast).

Just for the record. :->

-- Anonymous, July 19, 2001


I've had glasses since I was 9 years old and started with contacts about 25 years ago. They're gas permeable hard and are okay. I switched not because I minded glasses but because I get a better prescription with them than with glasses.

I wear them all the time except once a week when I go to the sauna & pool. No prescription sunglasses - for once a week, clip ons are fine.

They're equally annoying in different ways. I guess contacts have a slight edge because of the better correction.

I'm planning to get laser surgery as soon as I can afford it.

-- Anonymous, July 19, 2001



I've had glasses since I was seven. For a couple of years in my early 20s, there was a wonderful, beautiful, long-wear contact lenses interregnum. Peripheral vision, the ability to see when I woke up (you have NO idea how underestimated that is) ... it was wonderful. Except that I got a horrible hideous eye infection from them, and then when I went to a new optometrist to get a new prescription, he told me that never in this lifetime should I ever have been prescribed soft contacts, because my astigmatism is so severe that it guaranteed improper vision correction and somehow left me prone to more eye infections (I confess, I don't quite understand that last bit). And I can't tolerate hard contacts. Sigh....

-- Anonymous, July 19, 2001

I love my glasses, love love love them. Well, actually, I hate my current glasses, because they dig into the sides of my skull and I don't know why, because how can my HEAD be getting fatter, but I love wearing glasses. They are no trouble, you don't have to stroke your eyeballs, plus my face looks strange without them.

I wore contacts when I was 16, the kind where you had to cook them in a machine every night, and when you lost one, as I constantly did, sometimes inside my eye, it cost a fortune to replace. I wore them on and ooff for a couple of years, until I got a case of conjunctivitis so bad that I had no whites in my eyes at all, only reds, and I decided that enough was e-damn-nough.

-- Anonymous, July 19, 2001


I only had to wear glasses for distance (seeing the board, driving) until my second year in grad school. About my 4th year, I got contacts and wore them all the time for a year, got tired of them and started only wearing them for exercising (running, swimming) and going dancing. I've just gone through a couple of months of trying to get new contacts. My old contacts (got them 2 years ago, but wore them only about once a week) were a store brand and they still felt fine, but they were OLD. I went to an independent doctor (and didn't know the old ones were a store brand) but every single daily wair/disposable out there that we tried killed my eyes the minute I put them in. Who knew that I just got lucky the first time I tried a pair years ago. I just can't take the size of the disposable ones - they are much bigger than my long wear ones and I can feel their edges. I finally got old-style ones that you clean every day and keep for about a year - they are smaller and a bit harder than my old ones, and very tapered so I don't feel the edge under my bottom lid.

I like the way I look with both my two pairs of glasses (one wire, one tortoise shell and funky) and contacts, although honestly I think the glasses hide the encroaching age around my eyes, not that I'm that worried about it. I do hate the raindrop thing, and that my favorite glasses slip down my nose in the summer when I'm hot and I have the sunglasses clip on them.

If I had the money, I'd have about 5 or 6 pairs of glasses - if I'm going to wear something everyday, why not have a choice like you do with shoes and the rest of your wardrobe?

-- Anonymous, July 19, 2001


I started wearing contacts this year for the first time in about 20 years ... I have been pleased and surprised at how much more comfortable they are now than when I tried them the first time. (2-week disposable now, soft extended-wear then.) I still sometimes have irritation, but not badly, and much less of a nuisance than wearing glasses.

-- Anonymous, July 19, 2001

Ooh! I love the idea of having multiple pairs of glasses, to match your outfit and your mood. My big extravagant purchase last summer was a pair of prescription sunglasses--my glasses had come with a cute clippy sunglasses attachment, but let's be honest, it was only one step up from the big snap-on seventies-style sunglasses attachment. These prescription sunglasses are just a joy--I can wear sunglasses -and- see!

-- Anonymous, July 19, 2001

I've worn glasses - with big, thick, bullet-proof lenses - since childhood. I, too, had a pair of hideous blue plastic frames, but I picked them out myself, so I have no real excuse. Contact lenses were not an option until I was able to pay for them myself. And then when I finally grew up and got a job, my childhood eye doctor would not prescribe them for me - he said my eyes were too dry, and I'd never be able to wear them comfortably. I found another eye doctor (really - he was a jerk for lots of other reasons, too). Although my eyes do tend toward dryness, I was OK in contacts in the humid midwest. WHen I moved to eastern Washington state, with its arid, semi-desert climate, I gradually found myself less and less comfortable in contacts, to the point where I couldn't wait to get home from work and take them off. I finally decided to just spend the money on a pair of really cool frames that fit well so I could be more comfortable in glasses. (Previously, I'd always just picked cheapo frames from the bargain bin - since I was wearing contacts most of the time, why spend more on glasses?) Having a good pair of glasses, that fit well and look cool, made a big difference.

Even bigger difference was achieved with LASIK surgery last summer. It worked out very well for me; they achieved a correction level even better than I anticipated. As nearsighted as I was, I expected to still have glasses for things like driving and going to the movies - but thinner glasses, glasses that cost less than $500/pair. After 25 years of champagne-bottle glasses, I now have 20/20 vision!! I can see everything! I can wear sunglasses! and I can have several pairs of sunglasses! I can see things, in focus, when I first wake up in the morning! I can see inside the house when we come in from walking dogs on frosty winter nights! The trees have leaves! Well, not on frosty winter nights, but hopefully you perceive my delight in accurate vision.

My advice for having LASIK is to choose your surgeon carefully, after doing the research and asking around. I understand that the whole idea is a little scary, but once you get past the idea that you're allowing someone to slice into your eyeballs, the results are amazing. Ask your regular eye doctor for recommendations - I'm assuming here that those of us with champagne-bottle glasses have a regular eye doctor, and one whom we trust. Mine sent me to the same surgeon who worked successfully on his wife's eyes. Don't hunt around for a bargain - here in Washington state, with many cheaper Canadian clinics within an easy day's drive, many people choose eye surgeons by price alone. Not to say that Canada does not have many excellent eye surgeons - my point is that when you're hiring someone to SLICE OPEN YOUR EYEBALLS, saving a hundred bucks (or even several hundred bucks) is not the most important criterion.

-- Anonymous, July 20, 2001


Glasses when I was four. Contacts when I was fourteeen. LASIK at forty-four. If I could have kept wearing contacts, I'd have left it alone. It is *elective* surgery and, if it doesn't work as planned, the costs can be both high and permanent. But I'd been spoiled with too many years of peripheral vision and glasses were just so difficult after all those years. I had switched eye doctors to one who did LASIK surgery (switched for other, very good reasons) and studied on it for two years before making the decision. I also got the results of an ideal textbook example. The last time I saw this well, I was 25 years old and wearing old-fashioned hard plastic contacts.

I paid top dollar for my surgery. Why is my eye doctor so expensive? He has phenomenal success rates because he's so conservative in his candidate selection. And, most of all, he will not do more than five surgeries in one day because he says the amount of concentration required can be affected by fatigue and he won't do the surgery if he's not at his best.

-- Anonymous, July 22, 2001


I've had glasses since about age 6 (I am extremely nearsighted), but needed them probably since I was born. I remember the day I first put my glasses on and thought "wow! I can see every individual blade of grass! Trees have leaves!"

I wore glasses up until about age 14, enduring constant teasing (although some was justified - I used to pick out the most godawful frames, what I wouldn't do for a time machine). I decided then that I didn't want to look like a smart geek girl, so I ditched the frames and went to (soft) contacts. I loved them and wore them all the time. I started out with year long ones, and found that the linear degradation of my eyesight actually plateaued for a few years. My opthamologist said that was because I was using my eye muscles more. Instead of turning my head to see something, I was just moving my eyes.

Then I found that this little byproduct of contact wearing went away and my eyes changed, along with the brand - (they put me on Acuvue). I found that the contacts didn't give me perfect sight any more, although they were still fine for sports (hard to fit glasses in a fencing mask). I think my eyes have gotten a lot drier, and I work in front of a computer for a lot longer each day, so I just can't handle contacts.

I am getting used to glasses though, it helps that there are many cool and funky styles out there these days, although even though I get the highest index lenses and the smallest frames I can find, I still hate that they make my eyes look all piggy. Everyone says I have lovely eyes, so it is a shame they have to hide behind these frames. The only plus to glasses is that all you have to do is take them off.

My next appointment (should be coming up soon) I am going to get refitted for contacts and get another funky pair of frames, and just to the old 1-2 whenever I feel like it. I just hope that my eyes have slowed down on getting worse. I don't want to be blind.

-- Anonymous, July 22, 2001

I wear glasses most of the time. And one-day disposable contacts for swimming/gym/showing my face. (About 2 times a week usually.) I like the casualness of glasses. No big fuss to take them on and off. And I keep mine very clean -- dirty greasy glasses are a pet peeve.

I tried hard and soft contacts in high school and college but couldn't tolerate them very well. Even when I was living in a humid climate, the soft ones were uncomfortable. A couple of years ago I was told by an opthamologist that my eyes produce a large amount of protein. That's why contacts were so uncomfortable -- protein build up started immediately.

So I think it's worth the conspicuous consumption to wear one-day disposable contacts. For the first time I can wear contacts all day and not think about them. I don't think the blister packs are that wasteful anyway. Compare it to birth control pills -- why do they insist on giving you a plastic box with every refill? If I ever go back on the pill I think I'll refuse the boxes, make the pharmacist take it back.

-- Anonymous, July 23, 2001


I've been wearing disposable lenses (the two week kind) for the last five years and I love them to pieces. I wear my glasses on the weekends if I'm not going out or only within a five block radius of my apartment.

Don't believe the hype about not having to clean disposable lenses, y'all. I clean mine every night when I take them out. Maybe I'm being more careful because I live in New York City with all the grit and grime in the air, but I've been through too many scratched corneas to do anything different.

I've been thinking about laser surgery, but I'm really skittish about my vision and the possibility (even remote) of losing it, so I'm sticking with my lenses. I do plan to invest in some nicer frames so that maybe I can change up now and then. Thank goodness for vision care coverage...

-- Anonymous, July 23, 2001


Both, but I VASTLY prefer my contacts. I haven't found a pair of eyeglasses that look good on me yet, and I'm envious of all my friends who can wear just about anything and look adorable.

-- Anonymous, July 23, 2001

Thank you for starting this topic. I had completely forgotten a pair of glasses that I left at the eye doctor back in MARCH to get new lenses. I keep two sets of frames so I don't have to look the same all the time, but I forgot I didn't have the second pair. Lame, lame, lame.

-- Anonymous, July 23, 2001

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