I May Need Glasses

I don't need glasses but I did work in an optical shop and most people had a backup pair of glasses. Reasons could be - eye infection, lost a contact, need to see walking to the bathroom in the middle of the night or early morning or that you like a funky look sometimes. I have glasses for driving at night and they are cute plastic frames that are fun to wear sometimes. Oh and if you have a bad astigmatisim it's harder to wear contacts as you have to get toric contacts.

If you don't want to pay a lot for a pair of glasses get a pair from www.zennioptical.com I just got a pair of reading glasses from them and they came to around 15 dollars including s/h and they are super cute and seem to be great quality. Not cheap looking at all.

Actually, I had the same thing several years ago...I was having a hell of a time reading my computer screen at work. It finally became so annoying to me that I went ahead and got glasses for work and driving. It is SO much better. I don't wear them all of the time. I couldn't stand the thought of putting something in my eye every day, so contacts were out for me....

Get both.
Sometimes your eyes need a break.
Plus it's best to take them out at night (they have some extended wear
but better to take them out every night) and it's a darn good idea to have
your glasses as back up!

I haven't had glasses since 1997.

First out of choice (my glasses were HIDEOUS... I picked then out when I was 10, with a 10 year olds fashion sense - Hint: I'd just seen medicine man... We're talking big honkin glasses in the 80s style of aviator HUGE), and we didn't have enough money to replace them, so I wore them until I was 17, joined the military, and got contacts. I backed over them with a car. Sigh. It didn't really damage them that much.

I wore contacts on the sly in boot camp, the BCGs were almost as unattractive as my last pair (military issue glasses are nicknamed BCGs as 'birth control glasses'), and like most others in my platoon my BCGs mysteriously disappeared after a couple weeks ;)

I've WANTED glasses again for about 10 years. But at $800 for a cute pair, or even 200 for a cheap pair it just wasn't gonna happen.

I've wanted them for 'backup'. In the past 15 years I've worn my contacts 24/7... Only taking them out to put in new ones. I have SUPER healthy eyes, but I've had pinkeye twice, 1 serious infection, & gotten hot peppers in too manin them too many times to count. I've ripped my last lens. I've gotten sand in my eye. I've worked in Chem labs, and done a hundred other things that a pair of glasses would just be USEFUL.

My eyes love contacts. I sleep in them (not everyone can), never get dry eye. A majority of people take them out at night. Glasses take 1 second to put on in the morning. 30 seconds to wash your hands and put in contacts might bunt seem like a lot UNTIL you've got a sick kid or someone knocking at the door! (Or god forbid a fire or medical emergency). People who don't sleep in their lenses HAVE to have glasses. People who get dry / scratchy eyes from their lenses would go insane if they couldn't take them out!!!

Oy. I'm apparently in a never 1 word when 50 will do phase. :P I'm sure you got the point 8 pages ago!!!

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HINT: Don't pick out frames until AFTER your contacts. Seeing clearly changes how glasses look on you! (part of my mistake in 1990)... But I've also come close to buying several times. They ALWAYS look different after you can see again!

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(Oy. More words)

Remember it takes 3 days for your brain to adjust to your vision changing. The clarity should be immediate but there are some side effects (like seeing the lens move on your eye, feeling "thick", etc.) which are HIGHLY ANNOYING if you're super sensory. But that all goes away in 3 days.

Cool study... some neurologists had college students wear goggles that flipped their vision upside down. In 3 days, they woke up and everything was "right side up". Then the neurologists had them take OFF the goggles. You guessed it... everything was upside down! 3 days later, their brains fixed the issue. (Bet those researchers broke out in a cold sweat waiting! Not to mention the kids!)

A lot of people are so annoyed by the way contacts feel on day 1 that they take them out. And then only wear them a few hours a day, or occasionally. If you do that they will ALWAYS be annoying. If you can stand the Arrrgh! factor for 3 days, though, then it feels like you aren't wearing anything in your eye. No floating, shaking, thick feelings, etc. Some people or 'work their way up to' a whole day over several weeks. No worries there. Just means several weeks of being annoyed in smaller increments until they're worn for 3 days straight.

When I wore contacts, I always made sure to have glasses too... I am legally blind without corrected vision, so if my eyes were irritated from allergies or anything else, I could still see with my glasses. Plus, it was nice to have them for moments when my DD needed me at night and I didn't want to go to the effort of putting them in, or lazy mornings. :)

I have both, but I just got my glasses last summer. I wore contacts exclusively from 2003 until then. I'm glad I got my glasses when I did because I had a scratch on my eye and couldn't wear my contacts for a week. I'm so blind that I would have been stuck at home if I hadn't had glasses. I don't use my glasses that often, but they are great backup, just in case. I take them and a spare pair of contacts on vacations.

I second www.zennioptical.com for inexpensive but fun glasses. You won't know if you can wear contacts until you try. My eyes are so dry that I can't wear them very long. Not only do they get irritated, but the correction doesn't even actually work if the contacts aren't "floating" in moisture on your eyes.

My Husband has contacts and glasses.
He wears the glasses at home.

Me: I have glasses. No contacts. I have those "progressive" type glasses.
But really cool frames and I think I look nice in glasses! It is really hip ya know?
;) wink.

Hey, you might look really great in glasses too!
Its an accessory.... but like makeup, some people don't need that either.
LOL

A good eye exam will answer all of your questions and options.
Even with my contacts, there came a point where I needed readers for computer work, reading and reading labels, etc.
The solution for me? Monovision. I wear O. contact and that eye is used for distance, the other for close work. No more readers. Took a little getting used to but works fabulously for me.

I have both. My glasses are for when I take my contacts out at night, until I go to sleep. I'm not BLIND, but I don't see well and if I walk around without contacts or glasses for too long, I get a headache. I can't sleep in my contacts, so that is not an option for me. If you want a really cheap pair (this is for Riley too) coastal.com consistently runs a special where your first pair is free- just pay shipping. I got my son (6 yrs) a back up pair for $6.95 shipping and while they're not the most fantastic quality, they're not bad at all, especially for the money.

why vain?
the right glasses are uber-sexy!
khairete
S.

I have worn glasses since I was 11-- egad, we're at our thirty year anniversary, the glasses and I. It's a love affair.

Of course, I 'cheated' a few times and got contacts. My mother went through a spate of about four years in my teens when her mantra was "You'd look so much better in contacts." and I tended to believe it at the time. Once in my early twenties, I realized that I couldn't do close work or read well with them, and bought reading glasses. That's when my headaches started.

Switched back to glasses (so much easier to just take them off for sewing or reading) and have been faithful ever since. I love mine-- I have some wicked awesome vintage frames that I picked out from a funky place years ago. I hope and pray every day they last as long as i do. (I have also been known to pull a few legs when people ask me about them and I'm so inclined...Willed to me on grandma's deathbed; knocked over an old lady and stole them; etc---they are a great story prop! But I always come clean... it's just too much fun. hee hee!)

I have both. I only wear my glasses when my eyes just feel like they need a break for the "fish eye like sticky things that stick to them all the time", or when I just feel like its time to give the "balls" a breather. My husband says I look like a sexy librarian with my black rimmed glasses on. It's fun to have both, and good to have both.

I have both, and a pair of prescription sun glasses as well.

Why? Well... when my son was born, I was up and down in the night with a newborn and had the kind you can leave in for 2 weeks without taking them out. (it was "new" back then...) I did fine, except, being sleep deprived like I was, and having become a SAHM almost instantly, I no longer had any idea when 2 weeks was up. I mean... I didn't have to BE anywhere, and I didn't look at a calendar except for baby dr appts, ya know?
Well, I ended up getting red eyes.

Not just irritated red, like if you rub your eye or get something in it. I'm talking about a condition where your eye grows additional blood vessels to increase their ability to move oxygen to your cornea. You see, eyes take in oxygen mostly through osmosis. When you cover that up with a plastic lens it reduces the amount of oxygen that it can take in. The lenses today are VERY permeable. However, the longer you wear them, the more build-up is on them and the less permeable they become. Which is why you should NEVER go longer than you are "supposed" to when wearing them for 2 weeks at a time. Well... I did. And voila... started having red eyes all the time, b/c they were trying to grow blood vessels. Oh joy.

So, I went to wearing strictly glasses for a period of time, to make sure my eyes stopped that nonsense. The redness went away (although it is my understanding that any blood vessels that grew won't go away) and I can still wear contacts, it's just that now I am used to wearing my glasses all the time.

I do still wear contacts (just Monday I wore them all day, b/c we went to the water park and I didn't want to worry about breaking the frames on my sunglasses going down Pirate's Cove slide), when I have a reason to. I also ran that afternoon when we got home, and it was nice not to have that frame/glasses trapping hot air and steaming up as I was running, and sweat dripping into them so that they smudged my line of vision.

But, when I am up late, it is nice to just go to bed and set my glasses on the nightstand. No going into the bathroom and making a lot of noise fooling with the lenses. No running out of cleaning solution. And I don't feel like I need to wear as much eye makeup, b/c my frames already accent that area of my face.
There are definitely perks to wearing contacts, but it is always a good call to have a pair of glasses as a back-up. If you get an eye infection (pink eye, whatever) you aren't supposed to wear contacts until you are well. And you can't really predict those. All they are is getting a cold virus on your hand and touching your eye, and voila! You could have just given yourself an infection. It's really amazing that I don't have more, b/c having worn contacts for so many years before having kids, I am VERY comfortable touching my eyes with my fingers. lol

Glasses are easier a lot of the time. And if you do swim with contacts, if water splashes in your eyes it doesn't necessarily wash the contact lens out of your eye. But it DOES dry it out and makes it very irritating to be in your eye for a few minutes afterward.

Pros and cons to both. But have a backup. If you are as blind as me, you will be stuck if something happens to your contacts and you can't see, because you don't have an alternate option.

My husband wears his contacts 24/7 but every now and then his eyes will bug him and he will need to take his contacts out.

He is blind as a bat with out anything so he needs his glasses for those couple hours before bed and then to be able to find his way into the bathroom in the morning to put his contacts back in.

I wear contacts mostly, and have glasses for when I give my eyes a break from contacts. And some glasses are really cute or almost invisible. I'm 44 and have worn glasses since I was about 4, contacts since about 15. Just got bi-focal contacts (amazing).