Some History About Contact Lenses

Are you tired and annoyed with wearing glasses? Are you thinking about maybe switching to wearing contacts instead? Wearing contact lenses probably isn’t as difficult as you may think and there are a number of advantages as well. Find out more by taking a minute to read this short article about wearing contact lenses.

A Little History

Contact lenses 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 glasses. 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.

Even in the last few years there have been an increase in contact lens technology as lenses are now being made for people with astigmatism and even for people who need bifocals.

Why is it Good to Wear Contact Lenses?

Most people’s primary advantages for wearing contacts is for cosmetic purposes, but there are also other reasons:

* Unlike eyeglasses, the lens moves with your eye so there is no image distortion.

* The frame of glassescan block your side / peripheral vision.

* Eyeglasses can often steam up when you go from a cold to warm temperature room.

* Some people need different types of lenses for each eye and contact lenses are sometimes the only solution for them.

* The protection of contact lenses can often help someone with an injured cornea.

So How Do You Get Contacts?

You should go see your eye doctor 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.