Maybe you're somebody who really doesn't like wearing glasses but something about
contact lenses has intrigued you for a while now in this video I'm going to be
talking about seven good reasons why this might be the very best time to take
that step into contact lenses. I'm Martin Oguzie and this is Martin's eye tips, thank
you for joining me on this channel we're all about bringing you I care tips how
to videos and product reviews all designed to help you see better more
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new video let's get started with today's video which is all about contact lenses
So number one on my list is that contact lenses has never been cheaper. Now back
when I started my career some 20 years ago
soft lenses soft lens daily disposables in particular which were the most
expensive lens type option available and still are today they could be had for
about 30 pounds for 30 pairs of lenses and that was absolutely rock-bottom
prices if you can get them fast-forward 20 years and what we're finding right
now in the market is that you can get them for approximately half that price
and if as long as you're not too fussy on the brands then you know there's
great bargains to be had on the market as far as daily disposables are
concerned when we look at the reusable lenses so that's the two equally lenses
or one monthly reusable lenses then they come in a lot lot cheaper and of course
these lenses you have to reuse now the top brands still commended the highest
prices regardless of whether you get them online or get them in store. So
that's predominately because these market leaders and hold their prices and
are quite stringent on their prices and it's hard for suppliers to get them at
any significant discount so we'll take the find that prices are consistent
between online and in-store as well so there'll be little bits of savings but
nothing compared to what you can get in some of the less well-known brands which
can be had for a lot lot cheaper so the value side of things contact lens wise
definitely there now so price shouldn't be something that puts people off even if
you have a low budget then there's plenty of options out there for you as well good.
Reason number two is the ever-expanding option list of contact lenses available
in the market and by this I mean the fact that not
only do we have farsighted lenses and nearsighted lenses we also have
multifocal lenses which aim to correct your farsighted and you're reading all in
one and we're seeing more, in recent times, of an expansion of this to
incorporate lenses that do your farsight, nearsight an astigmatism all-in-one.
Now traditionally I know that this is an area where we struggled with in the past
people really have an option when it comes to correcting all three in the one
lens so that's an exciting development and it's quite a new development so
suffice it to say it's a work in progress as far as getting people the
best vision for all three distances in the one lens is concerned. Now another interesting
development is a transition lenses who have developed the first contact lens
that reacts with the light to tint and that solves a problem for a lot of
people who wear contact lenses but need tinted glasses on top or are used to
wearing photochromic glasses that react with the light there's never been
traditionally an option to do that with contact lenses so that's available right
now and it's definitely something worth speaking to your contact lens fitter
about and. The third good reason is that contact lenses have never been healthier
for your eyes and when it comes to healthy eye with contact lenses then
good hygiene goes a long way to making sure that your risk of infections and
other complications of contact lens wear is kept to an absolute minimum. Now aside
from hygiene, then the other key area where contact lenses can pose a health
risk has also been the amount of oxygen you get to your eyes now spending lens
material has been around for many years now is what we call hydrogel and
hydrogel lenses allow oxygen to pass through by binding to water that's
within the lens. So the higher the water content of the lens the more oxygen that
can pass through to the cornea we want to get a balance however because if we
have too much water in the lens the lens is more prone to drying out and if we
have too little water in the lens then it's not gonna be enough oxygen passing
through. The lens will also be uncomfortable as well so right about 20
years ago we saw this new generation of material coming out
market cause silicone hydrogel and these worked a little bit differently because
the material itself was oxygen permeable, so didn't need to have as much water in
the lens, the silicone hydrogel material itself were proved to be so permeable to
oxygen it didn't need to have much water in the lens and one of the earliest
application of silicone hydrogel materials were lenses that you slept in
for 30 days continuously. As time has gone on and presumably as technologies
got a bit better we see more and more lenses being made out of silicone
hydrogel and the technology is trickling down to daily disposable lenses and to
weekly reusable lenses and it means that we have an altogether more healthier set
of lenses now that we can offer people and the idea behind these lenses is that
they are used throughout the day and not necessarily to sleep in. So you end up
having the benefit of being able to use your lenses when you wake up in the
morning right - when you go to bed without watching the clock and then
counting down how long you had your lenses in so that gives people a lot
more flexibility in use and also means that we have lenses now that will
kind of remove one the biggest obstacles to healthy eyes and healthy kind of
compliance with contact lenses and that is this oxygen barrier that lenses
create. And that brings me on to reason number four; contact lenses have never
been more comfortable. Lens comfort is undoubtedly one of the biggest reasons
why people have success with lenses or give up on them so when you find your
lenses aren't comfortable then it's obviously gonna mean that you're less
likely to pursue them and carry on with them over a long period of time so with
the current generation lenses we've seen a lot of competition between
manufacturers and they're all vying to make lenses that are ultimately more
comfortable than their competition so this means that for a consumer there's a
lot of choice out there and we have a great deal of lenses now that we can
offer as alternatives when one lens doesn't work. Now Johnson and Johnson have been
market leaders over the years in producing lenses that people would find
noticeably more comfortable than the competition but also in innovating and
new technologies and new product lines that often get imitated by the
competition. Now over the years this has driven a lot
of rivalry between manufacturers and we're seeing that benefit kind of
passing through to the kind of lenses that are coming out on the market right
now a great example of how this competition has led to lenses now that
are way way more advanced to anything that we've had in the past is Alcon
Total 1 contact lens. Most practitioners and contact lens users
would generally say that this lens beats everything else in
terms of comfort and a technology that's involved in the lens. So it's definitely
a lens that you know many practitioners see as a go-to lens and it's one that
I'm going to perhaps feature a bit more on the channel, so if that's something
that you want to see leave me a comment in the comment section as well and I'll
review that lens and give you a bit more insight into the technology that goes
behind making such a lens. And when you get lens that's ultra comfortable
it's such a winning combination for people because it really gives you that
sense of not having any kind of prescription and people tend to just
forget about their contact lenses you know which is you know how contact
lenses were really intended. But it also means that contact lenses then just
become a really compelling way to correct your vision over glasses now for
many contact lens wearers the experience of getting the right contact lens that
is super comfortable really just gives them the advantage that they've been
after all along which is to eliminate the weight on their face of wearing
glasses so that's something that once the balance is struck right can really
make a big impact on people's lifestyle and really just your ability to engage
with the activities that you love to do the most. Good reason number five is
that there are so many more shopping options when it comes to buying contact
lenses now of course the landscape is super competitive so many practitioners
recognize that people want to shop around and they genuinely do want to
make things simple for you to be able to do that. You may find when it comes
to premium lenses it may still be quite competitive to get that in practice
because of the fact that online supplies you know really don't get better margins
on these lenses so they can't really pass the cost that much unto you and
that's because the manufacturers really do hold
their prices quite tight and keep it the same for everybody. But when it comes to
budget lenses and then online... you know prices are really low and there's a lot
of prices out there so if you're not too bothered about the brands or you really
after as cheap as you can get
and get still get reasonable vision then online, you know it's hard to beat
and there's a lot of options out there as well. But you know I wouldn't
write off your practices as well because as I said they may be able to
bundle in your contact lens aftercare and when that's bundled in then you may actually
find there's not that much of a difference in saving. but you know
certainly, it's great that there is so much choice for people out
there and you know you can kind of look around order online, ordering in-store
and the landscape is just super competitive now and that's only
really a win-win for the consumer. And good reason number six is the vision
quality that you can expect used to be the case that contact lenses would
provide people with a good amount of vision but not necessarily as good as
glasses and that was something that people kind of just lived with. But
thankfully those days are long gone and there's so many options available now to
your contact lens practitioners that you know it's reasonable for you to expect
to get as good a vision in contact lenses now as you do with your glasses
so there's a lots of things that we can do to make sure that the vision is good
and that includes making sure the vision is stable making sure that you know the
lens technology is there for you and also making sure that people's
prescriptions do match quite closely the contact lenses that are available.
SO whether you're or somebody with a high prescription or very low amount of prescription no amount of
astigmatism, higher amount of astigmatism or whether you have
presbyopia, so you need the lenses that help you to read near as well as see further
away, there's lots of creative things that your contact lens fittest can do
nowadays to be able to help you get as good a vision as possible and
particularly because there's a wide range of manufacturers a wide range of
lens options available now that just weren't available in the past so I
certainly think you're within your rights to expect vision as good as in
your glasses and then the self respecting contact lens practitioner
will go out their way to make sure that that is achievable for you now of course
there may be situations where that level of vision isn't quite achievable in
contact lenses. But certainly you wan't to achieve a level of vision that allows you to do
everything that you want to do safely and comfort.
And finally in at number 7 is that contact lenses have never been more
convenient. So back in the days when I first qualified probably about 60% of
the contact lenses that are fitting were hard lenses and the tables have turned
somewhat over the years and that's looking more like 90% soft lenses and
probably 10%, if that hard lenses. So what that means is now we have a
generation of lenses which are so much more convenient for people particularly
in terms of maintenance and caring for your lenses.So whereas with hard lenses
you'd have to kind of have a wetting solution, a cleaning solution and enzyme
tablets to remove protein you don't have any of that to worry about as
far as soft lenses go. Really for most people it's simply a all-in-one multi-purpose
solution which does everything it cleans it rinses the disinfects it's safe to go
on your eyes so that means that the maintenance of your lenses is a lot lot
easier than it used to be and on top of that if you want ultra convenience then
you've got daily disposables as an option as well to consider and with any
disposable there's obviously no cleaning involved because you use your lenses on
daily basis on a once used only basis and you dispose of them. So whereas with
glasses where you might have to be adjusting your glasses throughout the
day cleaning them defogging them, you don't have any of that as far
as contact lenses is concerned.Once the lenses are in, then they're pretty much
in for the day and when you get back in the evenings you can take them, out give
them the usual clean or dispose of them if they're daily disposables and your
day is done. So those are my seven good reasons to consider contact lenses this
year so a lots changed in contact lens technology over the years if you're
somebody who's tried it in the past didn't get on with them or had a problem
with them then it's definitely worth considering trying them again you know
with all the changes you may well find that this time around something is
different and the experience could be totally different for you and if you've
never given contact lenses a good serious thought before then hopefully some of those
points resonate with you and it may be a good reason for you to then go in and
get an examination and just see if that works for you and see
if it's something that you think might impact your lifestyle for the better now.
For my Tip of the day...If somebody's been thinking about laser refractive surgery
such as LASIK then perhaps contact lenses might be the
next logical step before you make your final decision. I'm always surprised by the
number of people who are considering laser correction but they've never given
contact lenses a try or any serious thought whatsoever . My tip would be
before you go ahead with your LASIK procedure try contact lenses out on a
short-term basis just to make sure that the experience lives up to what you
expect it to be if it does, great then go ahead with the surgery if it doesn't, well
you haven't spent the money that you would have done on the surgery you might find
that many practices may be able to give you a short-term contact lens trial for
a low cost investment or even on a free trial basis.
So it's definitely worth looking down that avenue before you make your final
decision. My question for you today is... Have you been putting off trying contact
lenses if so why please leave me a message in the comment section below if
you found this video helpful please consider liking it and sharing it and
also subscribing to the channel as well and hit the notification bell if you do
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you for watching and I look forward to seeing you in the next video