When I first had to wear spectacles while in high school, I was dismayed. It was hard to bring myself to terms with the fact that those cumbersome frames and glasses would stay on my face as long as I walked the earth. Naturally, when I grew older and I realised I could switch to contact lenses, I immediately did. Sure, they cost me more, but at least I didn't have to look like a nerd. Ironically, half a decade later, I realised spectacles could actually be stylish and I purchased myself another pair, fully equipped with an anti-glare and anti-UV coating. I lost my contacts a few days later and I have not bought myself another pair ever since.
Spectacles can be clumsy at times. The frames keep slipping or sliding, changing your focal length; the glasses themselves get shrouded with dust and moisture and what's more, you never get a good picture of yourself when the flash is used. Contact lenses solve most of these problems but then, contacts aren't for everyone either.
Why contacts?
Imagine being in a basketball match where a lot rests on your shoulders. You need to be running around, tapping the ball, taking a rebound and shooting three-pointers. And those darn spectacles keep slipping off. They fall down a couple of times, and even though you had bought yourself an "unbreakable" pair, somebody steps over it and that ends its eventful history. Or, imagine having to wear a helmet over your spectacles. Simply put, contact lenses often make life easier.
Contact lenses are lenses that are placed on your eye, right over the cornea and allow for correction of vision. The 'soft' lenses that you find in the market these days fit into your eye perfectly and after a few days of initial discomfort, your eyes adapt to them.
Contact lenses offer a range of advantages over the age-old spectacles. For one, because they rest close to the cornea, they allow for a more natural vision. Because their distance from the retina remains constant, you see a sharp image, completely in focus. Spectacles slide down noses, the bridge may not sit on your nose at the perfect focal length and you need to keep pushing your glasses up. Also, spectacle frames do not give you much of a peripheral vision. When you look at something above, below or on the sides, your field of vision usually goes beyond the frames and you see distorted and de-focused objects. With contact lenses, you do not have this problem since the lenses move along with your eyes, which ever directions you look in.
Contact lenses do not fog up in the cold, do not accumulate moisture on the surface when you perspire and can be worn in rain. Unlike glasses, they do not accumulate dust and obstruct vision, neither are they affected by fingerprint marks. Keeping your spectacles clean is certainly an issue. Most users find themselves taking off their glasses and wiping them with a cloth very frequently. Often, the small piece of soft cloth that comes with the glasses manages to disappear and we end up rubbing the lenses with our clothing or whatever cloth we can find handy. Over a period of time, the glasses develop scratches on them. There is also the fear of spectacles getting damaged when something strikes them, rub against them or when they fall.
Contacts can be a blessing for athletes, too. Those cumbersome glasses never saw anyone all the way through to the sports team anyway. You do get glasses that that fit perfectly and can be kept on all through the match (remember Daniel Vettori?). However, most of us will agree that glasses are just an inconvenience for high-activity or high-contact games. (You can't play rugby or wrestle with spectacles.)
Contacts are also convenient to wear for activities that require headgear. They can be worn while wearing a scuba mask, a bike helmet or swimming goggles. What's more, they do not keep slipping off your nose when you perspire, which means your hands can concentrate on playing rather than adjusting your frames.
When you wear contacts, you do not have ridges pinching your nose or pressing against your ears all day, nor do you have that heavy feel on your face. Glasses with greater power are thick and heavy and make the eyes look small. Overall, contacts not only make your life easier, they can also make you look better.
Are glasses gone?
But don't throw your spectacles out just as yet. Contact lenses are nice, but they aren't the god-gifted solution to every problem. For one, spectacles are the more viable option for multi-focus vision correction. Contacts with multiple focal lengths are getting up there, but at the moment, they are thick and clumsy and really not ideal. Hence, if you need a near-sight and far-sight lenses, the good old reading glasses mounted on frames are way better.
Soft contacts also become a problem with cylindrical correction since they can easily rotate around the eye balls, changing the axis. This problem can be resolved only by spectacles.
Also, if contacts are not kept clean and sterile, wearing them is as good as injecting microorganisms into the eye. It is necessary to have a cleaning solution and to clean and disinfect your contacts with it every day.
The one benefit of your specs is that they can also double up as sunglasses. With anti-glare and anti-UV polarised glasses available, they provide that extra protection from bright lights and ultra-violet rays. Also, they can protect the eyes against wind, dust and other objects. Having a grain of sand go into your eye when you have your contacts on can be a real inconvenience. You also do not lose your spectacles while washing your face in the basin, neither do they come off when you rub your eye.
Regular spectacles also cost lesser than contact lenses. However, if you are choosing designer frames with high-end branded lenses, they can cost you a bomb. But look at it this way, every once a while, eye-wear comes into fashion and you cannot make a fashion statement with contact lenses.
A lot of people who need vision correction are shifting to contact lenses. While contacts have a lot of advantages, the vintage glasses can come in handy, too. Hence, many prefer to own both. Which one you should keep is a decision you must take depending on what activities you indulge in and how you wish to look.
Best Regards
Prakash Nair
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