Do You Have Contacts?

My contacts. 9/6/25 dwm

 October is contact lens safety month, which came as news to me. I've been wearing contact lenses since my freshman year in college, 44 years ago.

 I've always had soft lenses but it's a lot easier caring for them now. Back then I had one pair that was expected to last a year. In addition to daily cleaning, every week I placed the lenses into a heater to disinfect them. 

 The idea of lenses goes back to Leonardo da Vinci in 1506. He didn't invent them but based on his study of the eye, proposed using a corrective lens separated by water from the eye ball. It wasn't until 1887 until a lens was invented by a German glassblower, F. E. Muller.

The original version of lenses were designed to rest on the white of the eye. Lenses that could sit on the cornea were developed in 1949 and were much more comfortable. Lenses were expensive and fragile into the 1990s when advancements allowed lenses to absorb oxygen. 

When I worked early mornings while doing the morning news for KJJC radio in Osceola, Iowa, I didn't put my contacts in until hours after my earlier wake up call. 40 years later, I can pop in a pair of lenses even when I'm just out of bed. 

I wear lenses designed to be worn for two weeks then thrown away, but I use them daily, taking them out each night, for a month. My eyes have no indication of irritation from the lenses. Each month I start a new pair, each year I go back to the eye doctor and purchase 12-pairs of contacts for the next year. 

You can purchase daily disposable lenses these days, that's investing in 365 pairs of contacts, but as long as my current system works, I'll stick with it. 

At some point, it's likely my eyes will become too dry lenses without eye drops or by using more saline solution to keep them comfortable.

For me, contact lens safety is practicing proper care each night; immediately stop wearing lenses that get torn or are out of saline solution for an extended period (30-seconds would be concerning); and see your eye doctor annually.

What I like about wearing contacts is that I can use ordinary sunglasses on bright days without needing a special prescription and if it's raining, I can see better than wearing eye glasses on a rainy day.