Are soft or gas permeable contact lenses best?
This really depends on how you look at it! Several factors are involved – prescription, comfort, cost, eye health, lifestyle. Soft contact lenses let less oxygen through to the eye than gas permeable contact lenses, so aren’t quite as healthy. This would make you think that everyone would wear rigid gas permeable contact lenses, wouldn’t it? Well, it’s the opposite – about 85% of contact lens wearers have soft contact lenses. The reasons for this are that rigid gas permeable lenses are more difficult to get used to as, initially, they are less comfortable. Gas permeable contact lenses are also not used for sport as they can be dislodged from the centre of the cornea. They should also be worn daily so the cornea can learn to tolerate the lens. This would now make you think, why does anyone wear gas permeable contact lenses! Well, they are much healthier for the eye, they are smaller, give excellent vision, the solutions to clean them are simpler and cheaper, they last longer and can cor
