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If you are a long time user of contact lenses you are already well aware of its many benefits. If you are considering a switch over from your old spectacles to contact lenses, let us inform you, you are going in the right direction. Over 30 million people in the USA are believed to use contact lenses, either as an alternative of the traditional spectacle or for some cosmetic purposes. If you too are thinking of stepping into their shoes, then try to equip yourself with as much information about the contact lenses as possible; it will help you to find out the right product suitable for your needs and take the informed decision at the time of purchase.

First of all, you may want to know about the actual definition of the contact lens. According to FDA definition, a contact lens is a prescribed medical device, which is usually placed on the cornea of the eye and used either for corrective or cosmetic or therapeutic purposes.

There are countless benefits of contact lenses. Contact lenses perform the same corrective functions as the conventional glasses, but as opposed to the glasses, contact lenses are virtually weightless and most importantly they are invisible. So they are regarded to be more comfortable than the traditional spectacles.

Then consider the contact lenses from an ophthalmologic point of view: As contact lenses move with your eyes they provide a better field of view. Like the glasses, there are no frames to obstruct your vision and thus they reduce distortions to a considerable point. Sometimes your vision is obstructed as the lenses of your glass get blurred by moisture, rain or dirt; you will find no such faults with your contact lenses.

Do you follow an active lifestyle and every time your spects come into the way of your active lifestyle? Then contact lens can be the only solution for you. If you are in any kind of sports including swimming, diving or athletics, a contact lens can offer you a distortion free clear vision at the time of your movements, without any kind of side effects. It is properly fitted inside your eyes so that it does not affect your concentration in any way.

There are many people, particularly the women who find the glasses to be great hindrance for showing off the natural beauty of their faces. On the other hand, contact lens provides utter ease and comfort and they do not come into the way you look.

You can get modern contact lenses with UV protection built into the material, so if you want protection for your eyes, you can opt for these lenses instead of wearing goggles.

There are people with eternal dissatisfaction over the color of their eyes and they find in the contact lens the golden opportunity to mend the nature to get the color of their dreams.

Part II

So you have almost taken the decision in favor of buying contact lenses after reading about the many benefits of contact lenses! But wait; let's inform you about the many types of contact lenses you might come across in the market.

In these days contact lenses are made of variety of plastic materials-- but at the core they are of two main types: soft or rigid gas permeable.

Soft Lenses: These contact lenses contain some 25% to 79% water. They are easily to adaptable to your eyes and hence are quite comfortable. With a soft contact lens in your eyes you will barely feel that there is something foreign in your eyes. However, you should be more careful in handling them and they have to be replaced more frequently.

Rigid gas permeable (RGP) lenses: These lenses take time to adapt to your eyes. But they have much greater resistance power against deposit buildup. With RGP you are supposed to get sharper vision. They are more durable too. Thus, at the beginning RGP may appear to be costlier, but because of its longer lifespan, RGP gives you better value for your money.

Daily Disposable Lenses: If you want the ultimate convenience, you must go for disposable contact lenses. The cleaning and disinfection procedures with disposable contact lenses are extremely simplified. They are better for your eye health because they are more frequently replaced. Also you always have some spare lenses with you. These days you get the disposable contact lenses in all toric, bifocal, and colored versions. Only you have to be cautious in your handling of these lenses. And for all these benefits you should be ready to pay some extra bucks.

Toric Soft Lenses: These lenses are claimed to correct astigmatism. You can get these types both in daily wear as well as planned replacement versions. You may be required to visit the doctor's clinic more than once to get a perfect fitting.

Color contact lenses: Then there are those colored lenses that are mainly used for cosmetic purposes. You can get mainly four different types of cored contact lenses, namely, visibility tints, enhancement tints, opaque color tints and light-filtering tints. If you have no vision problem, you can take the 'Plano' form of colored contact lenses that do not make any visual correction. You can also get them as disposable or frequent replacement lens.

However there is no hard and fast rule for buying the contact lenses from your eye specialist. You can buy them from any reliable optical stores. You can also try out in the online stores where you can avail the scope of wide comparison. But one important thing to consider, no matter wherever you buy the contact lenses from, your decision should be guided by the value of the product and not only the price.