Hard Lenses

Today I picked up my hard, gas permeable lenses.  I've worn contact lenses for decades but since moving to Arizona I have found the soft lenses to be more difficult to maintain with my low-moisture eyes.

For the past 8 years I've worn only glasses.

But honestly I really enjoy the vision afforded me by contact lenses and the ability to use sunglasses as I need them, masks for swimming, etc.  So I decided to try hard contact lenses.  I was warned that they are a very different beast and so they are!  Obviously one thing different from soft lenses is that they are hard.  They are relatively inflexible, so they are measured and made to more closely fit the curve of your eye.

While putting the lenses on your eye is more or less the same as with soft lenses, taking them off is a little more difficult.  The optometrist said I did well for my first try, even though it took me a minute or so.  You have to stretch your eyelids to the side so they apply pressure around the lens, then blink... if you do the stretch right they literally shoot out of your eye.  Kind of funny (until you lose one).  At first it felt like it wanted to pop out of my eye but after having to struggle to get it out, I realized it is simply a new sensation I will have to adjust to.

Speaking of sensations, the actual drawback to hard lenses is not how it feels on your eye, but how it feels to your eye lids.  I am suffering that right now, they say it takes a solid week for your eyelids to adapt, or begin to adapt.  So I need to wear the lenses about 5 hours a day until my next appointment so the eye doctor can assess the lens fit and such, and to see if I can stand wearing them.  I guess that is the biggest trigger for people to return the lenses, they complain that it just hurts.  According to my eye doctor it is the fixed edges of the lens that rubs against the eyelid when you blink (or turn your eye, or what-have-you) and that is the sensation you are feeling.  My LEFT eye already feels FINE with the hard lens, but my right eyelid has a small bump in it, and that catches a bit... so I imagine I will always feel that or it will take awhile to get used to it, at the very least.

My only other complaint is that the doc made my prescription too weak.  That is good and bad.  Bad when I want to see distant road signs, good when I want to work at my computer... but I would rather have stronger lenses for distance and wear reading glasses as needed.  So I will have to talk to him about that.

Oh there is one other good point:  supposedly these are actually more permeable to oxygen than soft lenses and since they are much smaller and roll around a little on your cornea, they don't deprive your eyes of oxygen... so... bonus there.

Now if only these lids would de-sensitize.