A brief history of the contact lense
Contact lenses have come a long way since they first started to get popular around 15 years ago. Now not only do we have daily and long term contacts but we have many different designs and even pictures on the front of lenses today. I suppose one on the main reasons that people wear contact lenses now is that they allow you much more flexibility when you are moving around and sports people especially really appreciate the freedom that it gives them. As i have just mentioned there are two main types of lenses:
- Daily use (throw them away everyday)
- Long term rigid glass
For many people the benefits of daily use have persuaded them to stick with these lenses over the more expensive long term rigid ones. One of the biggest advantages is that daily lenses don’t have to be disinfected and cleaned every day as you just throw them away. Another factor is that if you lose a contact (it can happen) it doesn’t really matter as you were going to throw it away at the end of the day anyway right!
Another big chance in the industry has been the advent of soft contact lenses. This mainly came about as the older hard contact lenses did now allow oxygen to get through to the eye. This could cause problems if you wear these contacts for an extended period of time (more than 16 hours a day). Some of the problems could be quite serious such as the cornea losing its transparency and also damage to the tiny blood vessels within the eye.
So to deal with these problems soft gel contacts were developed and from the start they really were a revolution. The main function of soft contacts was to let enough oxygen through to the eye to prevent damage, this is possible as soft contacts are often made of 70% water. This allows them to be both more comfortable than hard contacts and also let much more oxygen through to the eye.
So there you have a brief history on contact lenses and hopefully this will help you when you are deciding on your next pair of coloured contacts.
