Disposables or Frequent Replacement Contact Lenses, Daily Wear or Extended Wear—which is the best lens choice for you?

First and foremost, pay attention to your eye professional’s recommendations based upon his or her careful examination and measurement of your eyes.

But, before you just blindly accept their recommendation you might benefit from some of the following information.

Disposables and frequent replacements are terms that simply refer to discard and replacement schedules. Disposable contact lenses are discarded and then replaced every day or every 1 or 2 weeks. Frequent replacement lenses are made to be discarded and replaced wither monthly or quarterly depending upon durability of materials and your own wearing experience with those contacts.

The other key consideration is whether to use daily wear or extended wear lenses. The focus here is wearing schedule, not discard and replacement. Whereas extended wear lenses are designed so that you can sleep in them if you so desire, dailies are to be removed each night prior to sleep.

Other than clear vision and obviously comfort and convenience, why should you care about the differences? Well, I think you would agree that keeping your eyes healthy is a primary consideration. Other than cleanliness and good fit, oxygen transfer ability of your lenses is key especially when you wear them to sleep.

While virtually all contact lenses are made of plastic polymers, extended wear lens (wear-to-sleep lens) materials allow for greater transfer of oxygen to the cornea of your eye than do normal daily wear lenses. RPG or rigid gas permeable lenses are the newest "hard" lens types, and they tend to provide the greatest amount of oxygen transfer.

In general, daily wear soft lenses allow for a somewhat lower oxygen transfer but higher water content of the lenses, which often make them more comfortable. In addition, you remove these dailies before going to sleep and thus give your eyes greater rest and oxygen than with the extended wear lenses. Continuing advances in materials and reduction in manufacturing costs are resulting in a slow but steady elimination of the differences in lenses.

Studies indicate that wearing extended wear contacts may be healthier for your eyes especially if you opt not to sleep in them. However, a growing percentage of people are choosing soft contact daily wear lenses and a smaller but increasing number of those people have selected daily disposables as their lenses of choice.

If you choose to wear dailies which are not daily disposables, you should be advised that initial studies appear to indicate a greater rate of infection, irritation, and corneal ulcers among such users. The studies are not conclusive to determine if this is solely the result of poor cleaning habits or simply the lower transfer of oxygen to the surface of the eyes.

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Disposables or Frequent Replacement Contact Lenses, Daily Wear or Extended Wear—which is the best lens choice for you?