Discount Contacts Online

Unknown to many, more than 14 million people in the United States is suffering from visual impairment although most of them are not actually aware of their situation. This number came from a study held in 2006 by the Journal of the American Medical Association or JAMA, and at the time of the study, this figure of 14 million was about 6-7% of the total US population. Another interesting finding of the study was that 11 million of them could achieve a normal to near normal visual condition with the help of contact lenses of corrective glasses.

Over the years however, it is very obvious that there has been a great surge in the number of contact lens wearers not just in the United States, but all over the world. In an earlier report by Contact Lens Spectrum, it is estimated that the number of contact lens wearers in the US along is around 28-38 million individuals and all over the world, about 125 million people wear contact lenses. As these figures continue to rise, the number of people who wear eye glasses dwindle with every passing year. And so the question is, why is this happening?

As most of us know, a contact lens is a kind of thin, corrective lens worn over the cornea of the eye. By corrective, we mean that contact lenses were initially created to function much like eyeglasses do. They are worn to correct visual impairments that the wearer has such as myopia and astigmatism. But unlike eyeglasses, contact lenses are small, light and virtually imperceptible. Contact lenses are also great because they do not fog up when the weather is humid, they are protected by your eyelashes and eyebrows from rain and snow, and because they have no external frames the way eyeglasses do, they also offer a wider range of vision.

Nowadays however, colored contact lenses have also been created which function more as a kind of cosmetic eye accessory of some sort. With a colored contact lens, you can easily change the color of your eyes from black to blue to green to brown, something you definitely cannot do with a pair of eyeglasses. Cosmetic contact lenses also allow the wearer to change eye color from day to day if they like, and there are even costume colored contact lenses that would give you cat’s eyes, lizard eyes or even glow in the dark pupils.

There are also many other kinds of contact lenses which offer different functions. Extended wear contact lenses for instance, can be worn even during sleeping so wearers need not worry about taking them off or breaking them. Bifocal contact lenses can be worn by people suffering from near sightedness and far sightedness and prosthetic contact lenses on the other hand, can be used by people who have disfigurements in their eyes.