so glasses vs contact lenses in this video we're going to weigh out the pros
and the cons between wearing contacts versus glasses going over things like
cost the different powers of the lenses as well as which one gives you better
vision let's take a look hey and welcome this is dr. Allen here from the
doctor eye health show helping you learn all about the eyes vision and finding
the best vision products if you're new to the channel and you like learning
about the eyes and consider hitting that subscribe button down below so that you
don't miss any of my future videos now trying to figure out which one is better
few glasses versus contacts can be a little bit tricky because they both have
many benefits to them some of the benefits of glasses include being able
to easily take them on and off that's sometimes really helpful for some people
compared to contacts which are a little bit more maintenance heavy and as far as
the lenses go for glasses they have amazing optical quality you can get
something from the bargain bin if you want but if you want to see as sharp as
you can oftentimes glasses are probably the easiest solution to seeing better on
top of that glasses have complete customizable options whether you were
just want a basic frame to get you buy or if you want something a little bit
more classy like I have here or if you want something completely wild just to
express your artistic style you can get all of those your lenses can be fully
customizable based on what type of lens material you want if you want something
that's more safety protection do you want something that's maybe got a
transition lens that changes into sunglasses there's a lot of different
options out there if there's somebody who sees double vision or has like a
wandering eye you can get prisms put into your glasses where that's really
not too possible with contacts and then if you were somebody who has trouble
seeing up close you can even get bifocals trifocals progressive no-line
bifocals you can even get a bifocal put on the top of the lens if you really
want if you are somebody who maybe works on these cars like an auto mechanic or
an electrician and as far as price for glasses you can go up from anywhere from
the cheap bargain bin low quality pair of glasses that you can find in some
optical shops online to the most expensive extravagant pairs of glasses
that are out there some celebrities aren't even know to paid
thousand dollars or more for a single pair of designer glasses as far as
contact lenses goes and yes I am wearing contact lenses underneath these glasses
I just want to give you a heads up I am pretty biased toward contacts just
because contact lenses changed my life when I first got them when I was 13
years old and honestly definitely contributed to me even becoming an eye
doctor in the first place some of the reasons I love contact
lenses versus glasses is that contact lenses give you the freedom of not
having to wear anything on your face especially really good for social
engagements as well as sporting activities that's in fact the reason I
got into contacts when I was 13 anyways because I want to play sports and it's
kind of hard to play sports with thick coke bottle glasses wearing contact
lenses also allows you to wear non prescription sunglasses a lot easier
which is something that I absolutely love to do and then also contact lenses
take away some of the motion sickness and kind of distortions that you can get
from wearing glasses lenses because when you wearing glasses your glasses sit
about 12 millimeters in front of your corneal plane and when you look around
through a different part of the lens and shift your eyes around you're gonna look
through that different part of the lens and that's gonna have a prismatic effect
that we call prentices rule and that prismatic effect can kind of give people
this sense of motion or distortion in their lenses especially for people with
high amounts of higher powers or even higher amounts of astigmatism they're
more likely to notice that motion sickness feeling but with contact lenses
since the lenses themselves are physically touching the eye when you
shift your eyes around you're looking through the same part of the lens all
the time and so you don't get that same kind of prismatic effect and another
benefit is that with contacts you don't have to deal with looking through a
frame and parbat and part of your vision all day now a frequent question I get
about glasses versus contact lenses has to do with the power of the lenses in
your glasses versus the contacts now glasses lenses power are not necessarily
going to be the same as a contact lens power the reason for that has to do with
how your glasses sit in front of your face again they're usually about 12
millimeters in front of the cornea and if you've ever picked up your glasses
and move them closer to your eyes and kind of move them trombone them back and
forth you'll notice that the power seems to change and that's because the closer
you bring the lenses to your eye the more
negative power you're adding to those lenses so for people who have a stronger
prescription in eye care we usually reduce the amount of negative power or
we add more plus power when the contact lenses are getting moved from the 12
millimeter of your classes to directly onto the cornea as with contact lenses
and this adjustment that your doctor factors in is based on two things the
power of your glasses because the higher power you have the more of adjustment
means to be made as well as where your glasses are typically sitting on your
face is it at 12 millimeters or is it further down at 14 or 15 millimeters
that does make a difference now as far as cost goes for contact lenses it's
like shopping for a new cell phone if you want something with the newest
technology that is healthiest for the eye and most comfortable expect that
you're gonna pay more it goes far is maybe around $1,000 for a
year supply for wearing the contact lenses every day down to super cheap if
you want something that is just really old and probably not really healthy for
you the eye in fact some of the contact lenses on the market especially the kind
of colored contact lenses that you can find through some kind of scary online
retailers that are super cheap they're like I've found them online for like
five dollars before those are often made based on old technology patents from the
1960s and they're generally not very healthy for the eye because the
standards for health and health for the cornea and the surface of the eye with
contact lens wear weren't really even established until the mid 1980s but in
general for most people looking for a healthy newer technology of contact lens
expect that for a yearly supply they'd be paying about the same price of a new
pair of glasses of somewhere between two to four hundred US dollars probably one
of the biggest downsides of contact lenses is that they do pose a higher
risk for eye complications and infection and that's why it does take some level
of responsibility to take wear care of contact lenses and to wear them properly
that includes cleaning and disinfecting them correctly as well as replacing them
when they're designed to be replaced contact lenses can also feel dry and
uncomfortable for some people especially if you already have some form of dry eye
disease and some people have difficulty getting contact lens
in and out of the eye and if you're kind of just beginning in your contact lens
journey and you'd like to kind of learn more about getting contact lenses in or
out I do have a full series kind of contact lenses for beginners then you
definitely want to check out that series and I'll hook that up in the YouTube
card above as well as a description in the video link below for you as a
resource as far as glasses versus contacts in terms of which gives you
better vision that's a tough debate and it really depends on a couple of factors
for most people glasses are probably gonna have a higher
optical quality and will give you sharper vision as long as your glasses
are clean they're up to date and fitting right as far as soft contact lenses go
like the ones I'm wearing now in general again the optical qualities not quite
hitting glasses but most people should be able to still see close to 20/20 with
a pair of contacts versus their glasses however there are some people who do
better with contact lenses versus glasses and those are usually
individuals who have a really high glasses prescription because with the
higher prescription they're gonna have more distortions in the lenses where
somebody who has a kind of high amounts of astigmatism or some type of corneal
disease such as keratoconus they may do better with specialty contact lenses
such as hard our GP lenses or some type of scleral lens those specialty lenses
can mask over any sort of defects on the surface of the eye and get rid of
aberrations and other sort of distortions that they may see with
something like glasses so as far as vision goes it definitely is depends on
the person but in general most people do see maybe a little bit better with
standard glasses versus wearing soft contact lenses but to fully answer that
question I'm gonna pass it off to you do you prefer glasses contact lenses which
one do you think you see better Atif go ahead and leave a comment in the section
below hey if you liked this video go and smash that like button for me and if
you're a glasses wearer and you haven't seen my tips or tricks for glasses
wearers go ahead and check out that video by clicking or tapping the screen
up over here to the side or maybe you're getting into contact lenses and you'd
like to learn more about those for that you can check out this video series down
over here again this is dr. Allen here helping you the eyes and vision keep an
eye on it we'll talk to you soon