Want to know how to choose healthy contact lenses? Contact lens manufacturers are on a continuous quest to create the perfect contact lens. Find out which modern lenses give you the best health benefits, convenience, and comfort.
The healthiest soft contact lenses currently on the market are daily disposables, biocompatible contact lenses, and silicone hydrogel lenses.
Daily disposable lenses
You probably know that even if you follow the doctor’s instructions for cleaning your contact lenses, they never feel as good in your eyes as when you just take them off the package for the first time. And if you are a bit casual about caring for your lenses, they can feel even worse. There is a simple solution to this problem – contact lenses that you can get fresh from the pack every morning and throw out in the evening.
Many eye doctors agree that daily disposable contact lenses are the healthiest choice when it comes to contacts. Comfort and convenience are not the only benefits of daily disposable lenses. There is also no day-to-day deposit build-up, and the risk of eye infection is minimal. And if you lose or accidentally tear the lens, no problem – just take another one from the box.
The price of daily disposable contact lenses had decreased, over the last few years, and now they are very affordable. Bearing in mind that you will not need any lens care products, dailies won’t cost you significantly more than monthly disposables. Actually, daily disposable lenses can also be a money saver, if you wear your contacts only once in a while. Weekly and monthly disposable lenses have to be thrown out after their time is down, even if you wore them only once. If you open a fresh package of daily contacts every time you need to wear contact lenses, though – and if this is not too often – then a 30 lens pack will last you a long time.
There are many daily disposable contacts on the market. 1 Day Acuvue by Johnson and Johnson, Focus Dailies by Ciba Vision and Soflens One Day by Bausch & Lomb are healthy and affordable daily disposable contacts.
Biocompatible contact lenses
Do you know why your contact lenses don’t feel so good in your eyes by the end of the day? The main reason is that your body tries to reject foreign objects in your eyes by coating them with proteins, lipids and other cells from the surrounding fluids. But there is a way to prevent this “rejection” reaction – it is possible to create a lens that is compatible with your body. In other words, your body won’t see the lens as ‘foreign’ and won’t try to fight it.
Modern technology can create healthy contact lenses with PC (phosphorylcholine) – a substance that occurs naturally in human cells. The contact lens we are talking about, here, is Proclear Compatibles, by Cooper Vision. The PC used in Proclear Compatibles creates a healthy biocompatible lens material that feels comfortable and moist over several hours. This lens is also very resistant to dehydration, so it is ideal for people who suffer from dry eyes.
Silicone hydrogel contacts
You probably know that in the case of conventional contact lenses, the higher the percentage of water is, the better it is for you. However, there is another way to keep your lenses moist, with a low (30-40%) water content and a new material – silicone hydrogel.
Since the lens contains less water, it is less prone to dehydration, and the silicone hydrogel material makes it feel moist and very soft in your eye.
Successful silicon lenses are Acuvue Advance by Johnson and Johnson and PureVision by Bausch & Lomb (both of these brands also have toric lenses). Acuvue Oasys is the newest silicone hydrogel contact lens and deserves a special word. It is made from an improved material senofilcon A and provides extreme comfort for people with dry and sensitive eyes.
Proclear Compatibles, mentioned above, also belongs to the silicon hydrogel group of lenses.
Are your current contact lenses healthy? If you are still prescribed traditional monthly disposable or – God forbid! – annual replacement contact lenses, then it is time to switch to a healthier option. Ask your doctor if he or she can fit you with any of the healthy contact lenses mentioned above, and feel the difference.