Extended Wear

Another love hate relationship that I have is with contact lenses. They are god send creation for spectacles/glasses wearing individual. Contact lenses allow us to be free from the constraints of specs/glasses. No more wiping the lenses if you hands touches it, no more condensation forming on your lenses if you went out of a cold room, when you perspire the sweat won't drip into your eyes, when playing sports you can now have clear vision with out the frames cutting into your view, no worries about being knocked it the head and have your glasses flung out. Sometime specs/glasses wearers look are compromised by the thick frame or lenses. Yes they're lenses and frames that are thin, but these are incredibly expensive. Other contact lenses advantages is that some have UV coating in it to protect your eyes, some contact lenses now are made for people with astigmatism, while some are bifocals, meaning that those both far and near sighted, can also wear lenses. There are even lenses that acts a reading lenses to help those over 40 to read things more clearly. Another interesting thing with contact lenses, is that the ability for you to enhanced or change you eye color, with tinted or opaque lenses. Its a great way to update a look, look totally different, or just want something that only you can noticed. It beats coloring your hair since, coloring your hair just brings out the debate table on religious views on coloring (I am pro color).

However when you put it contact lenses, you must take them out. The eye are unique since it does not have a lymphatic vessel like the rest of the organ to send in white blood cells which are responsible to fight off infection. This means the eyes are very susceptible to infection. A soft, water permeable object that is placed on top of the cornea is a good breeding place for bacteria, fungus and parasites. Yes, that is what a contact lenses can do, a free hotel for breeding organisms.

There are days where you feel like you don't want or could wear contacts. Those include lazy days, or busy days. Lazy days are self explanatory, busy days means that you might have to wear contacts from 6.45am to 1.00am. That is almost 20 hours of wearing time, which double the recommendation time of wearing contact lenses. These are the days where you either not wear contacts at all, or you put it on later in the day, so that you could wear it through the rest of the night and morning fall.

However, each individual is different. Some people can wear their lenses at extended interval, and some can't. That is why the company will tell us, the lenses wearing time is based on your opthamologist (eye doctor) recommendation. One brand might work very well for you, but will not work as well for others.

This are just some of Extended Wear lenses that are available in Malaysia. These are extended based on the leaf inserts of the products that is available online

These are just some of the extended wear lenses that are available to us in Malaysia. Most of it is similar in features. They are tinted in blue, so that its easier to see it in contact lenses cases or if it falls to the ground. They have unique labels that show you if the lenses are inverted or inside out, if you find it hard to see whether the lenses curved inside or curved out (curve inside correct, curve out wrong side). All the lenses have oxygen permeability of at least 97% except for the Acuvue 2 which has oxygen permeability of 88%. The Acuvue range also has UV protection. Acuvue range are made to be disposed every 2 weeks, Air Optix and Soflens 38 are made to be worn for 1 months. All of these lenses are approved by the FDA to be worn overnight for up to 7 days. They allow such wearing time, because these are disposable lenses, meaning before anything to grow on the lenses, the lenses are thrown out, thus reducing the risk of infection. However it all depends on your personal eye doctor advice and your own comfort. For me, I like to take it out each night, but sometimes if you are out, you just don't have the convenience of taking them out and wearing glasses so, the option of wearing it overnight every now and then is very appealing