Joel Hayden: Looking for the pros and cons of soft contact
lenses? I'm going to tell you. Stick around. Welcome to the Eyecare Wellness Channel. If
you haven't been here before, I'm Joel Hayden, where we talk about all things eyecare, nutrition,
eye nutrition, and ways in which we can live a longer and better life. If that interests
you, consider subscribing and hit that bell notification nextdoor to it. That will let
you know every time I upload new video. All right? Let's get at it.
So before we bet started with the pros and the cons, I wanted to tell you, at the end
of the video, I'm going to let you know the best daily disposable contact that I think
you should go into as a new wearer and why. So, stick around for that. And now, let's
get at the pros. So, for the pros of wearing soft contact lenses, the first thing is, and
this has been my experience. I haven't worn contacts for about 15 years. I found them
not to be particularly comfortable. I have a lot of astigmatism. It just didn't fit me,
and I didn't mind wearing glasses until the pandemic.
And then, I could not stand the fogging of my glasses. It drove me insane. So, I had
to go fit myself for contacts, and I found a very comfortable pair that worked well the
whole time I was in the office. Driving at night was a little tough, but I worked around
it. Driving at night, I can take the contacts out and not have to worry about the mask on
all day, which is fogging my glasses. Fogging of eyeglasses during a pandemic is a very
good reason why you may want to go into contact lenses.
Number two, for many people, especially people with different prescriptions in each eye,
it will reduce their eye strain. So, consider contact lenses if you're getting a lot of
eye strain with your eyeglasses and you want to look at other options. Ask your optometrist.
Number three, it's great for sports. If you're active, I do a lot of Crossfit, I cannot do
it with glasses on. So, I usually won't wear my glasses at all, because the movements that
we tend to do I really don't need to see particularly well for them.
But now that I'm into contacts, it's wonderful. I can see everything. So, consider it if you're
really active or if you're going to play sports, or if your kids are going to play sports,
especially sports like baseball and basketball where they're getting knocked around a lot.
And, it will really give them an edge over other kids who are stuck in eyeglasses. For
some people, they have dry eyes, and the eyes are actually less dry when they wear certain
contact lenses. The type of lens I'm going to talk about at the end is one of those lenses
that tends to keep your eye more moist when you wear them compared to not wearing them.
We all know that glasses can be clunky, heavy, uncomfortable, tight behind the ears, pressure
on the nose, so the contact lenses will free you up. That's another pro of wearing the
contacts. Lastly, you can wear whatever sunglasses you want because you're not going to be stuck
having to wear a smaller lens because your prescription's too thick, or something that
just isn't what you want. When you have contacts in, you can wear any type of non-prescription
sunglasses you want, and you can have a myriad of them for what you would pay for just one
pair of prescription sunglasses. So that's it for the pros. Now let's go to
the cons of wearing contact lenses. Number one, it's a daily commitment. You need to
set aside time in the morning, especially when you start, to put them in and take them
out. So if you have a really hectic schedule and you need to have them on and out the door,
you might want to start on the weekends first, because getting them in and getting them out
can be a little tough for some people. Cost of the contacts. It's definitely more
than not wearing contacts. There's definitely a cost involved. There's a fitting fee. They
have to teach you how to put them in and out. And then, you either have to pay quarterly
or annually for your lenses. You can talk about dailies versus monthlies. It's really
a different topic for another day, but I really prefer the daily disposables. It makes things
a lot easier, especially if you're active in sports, but the cost of wearing the contacts,
for some, will deter them from wearing them. Risks. There are also risks involved with
contact lenses, especially if you don't listen to your optometrist. So, you shouldn't be
sleeping in them for the most part. There are certain people who do, and there are certain
people who need to, which is pretty rare. Again, not going into that, but for the most
part, if you're not the type of person that follows the rules, maybe contacts aren't for
you, because what you don't want to do is have a pair of lenses in, end of the day,
get in the habit of going, "Oh, these feel good the next morning. I'll just keep sleeping
in them." And then one day you wake up with a corneal ulcer, and they can be sight-threatening.
So, no. If you think that's going to be you, maybe glasses are for you.
And lastly, for many people, putting them in, taking them out, is just that they're
really squeamish around their eyes, and like, "I don't think I can do this." If you're motivated
enough, you'll get over it. This is a cool story. I had a young girl, 14, 15 years old,
more than a decade ago. Back then, I used to put the contacts in their eyes, and that's
how we were trained, and I put the lenses in her eyes, and she looked at me and she
goes, "I think I need some water." And I'm like, "She's about to pass out." And pass
out she did, right in front of her mother. I took the lenses out when she was passed
out. When she came to, we got her settled, got her all back to normal, got her some water,
and she looked at me and said, "I'm going to do this." And I'm like, "Huh?" She goes,
"I'm going to do this." And I said, "Listen, maybe contacts aren't for you. I really don't
want to see this again." And she goes, "I'm not giving up." And I said, "Okay." So we
taught her. We had her come in and put her fully in control of putting them in, taking
them out, which is what we do know, and it took four or five hours to train her, but
she got it. And that's the motivation you would need if you're really squeamish around
your eyes. All right, guys. So, here we are nearly at
the end of the video, and I want to tell you what the best contact lenses to wear for a
beginner are. I love the daily disposables. I think they are a no-brainer, but one of
the newer lenses out there is, it's Alcon's product. It's called the PRECISION1, and it
comes in regular, farsightedness, nearsightedness correction, or for astigmatism. And they have
been so good, so dynamite, so easy to handle for new wearers. I really like them, and I'll
put information on that down in the link below. Consider talking to your optometrist about
that brand when you get to them. And I hope this helped. I hope it kind of swayed you
one way or the other on whether or not you will want to try contacts. Good luck if you
do. I hope it goes well. Put it in the comments down below if it did, and until next time,
take care.