Contact Lenses

Newmark

My first ever sticky thread! I'm so proud!

Those Night and Day lenses sound great - anyone know where I could get hold of them in the UK and how much they cost?

vinayverma

Most of the practivcal aspect has been well covered by earlier posters. here is my 2 paisa:

It also depends on which part of India, you are going to travel. Rajasthan, Gujrat, MP, UP, Bihar, some parts of Haryana and punjab has the problem of dust. This may make wearing Contact lenses in the daytime in these areas difficult. Some of these areas are know for almost daily dust stroms till rains come-in.
Hills in North and South of India are generally fine.
If you are planning to go off-the beaten path or to smaller towns, it would be better to buy spare contact lenses (if required) and solutions from a city like Delhi, Mumbai....

__________________
If Life is a journey....travel on...and on..on..on.....

lostinasia

I was in North India in January and wore my glasses quite a bit more than usual--normally I much prefer contact lenses. There was so much dust and smoke floating around that with contacts my eyes felt irritated. It wasn't critical or anything; I just felt more comfortable with glasses.

You mentioned that you wore contact lenses through SE Asia... so did I, without any troubles, except in Laos. There, because of dusty roads, I often wore glasses. That may give you some idea for comparison.

The "contacts for a month" can also be taken out and cleaned and used again--those are what I regularly use, but I only wear them overnight when cleaning is too much trouble (camping, for example) and when they start to feel uncomfortable, in the trash they go. They're absolutely brilliant and I don't know how I ever used just one pair of lenses. I think I took three or four pairs to India, expecting to only need one more pair but having the others as insurance. Here in Taiwan they're typically sold in boxes of six.

Whatever

I have hard lenses, and my eye doctor reccommended that I use bottled water to wash them at night.
Wearing contacts in very polluted cities like Delhi is not such a good idea.

*jyoti*

Haven't been to India, but I have 2-3 week disposable contacts here in the US. They're slightly cheaper and are intended to be thrown away mroe often than the month long ones, which would probably help with the dust issues.

How easy/hard is it to buy contact juice (solution) in India, though?

--J.

kongkona

i wear lenses -and i did face some problems a couple of times..esp if the place is too dusty....now I make sure I keep my specs at hand..and if u r in a dry place (like North India) its better to keep a RE-Wetting Solution in the hand bag.

furlong

glasses are VERY cheap in india by the way.
i wear Pure Vision contacts, 24 hours a day for 30 days without removing, no problem in india.

redleader

being a lens/glass wearer myself and despising both, I thought I'd throw in my two cents. My eyes naturally dry out quickly and so I can never last the whole day in a pair of contacts. If I put them in around 8AM in the morning, I'm dying by the time 6Pm rolls around. So, when I'm on a trip and I'm roaming around during the day I carry my lens case, some solution, and my glasses in my day pack. So whenever i feel my eyes can't take it anymore, I'll just change out my contacts for my glasses.

One of my main reasons for wearing contacts is so I can wear sunglasses. But I think I'm going to try getting a pair of glasses with transitional lenses or a pair that has the clip on sunglass lenses.

On another note, I typically wear wire frame type glasses that tend to be pretty fragile. I'm considering to get a pair of thicker, more solid plastic frame glasses for traveling, that way, you can put them in your pocket when you're sleeping on the train/plane/etc. or drop them or whatever and they won't come out looking like a pretzel. yes, they probably won't make you look so hot but oh well!

__________________
have a happy day!

passingby

I worn contact lenses in India, but sometimes I had problems due to the dust.
I recommend you wear sunglasses to protect yourself from the dust. that's what I did.
otherwise, I really had no problems with lenses in India.

luciano

did you know you can actually wear daily disposables for more than 1 day if you store them as non disposable lenses? i wear them for two days and they are fine. i have a friend who wears them for 3 days and he says he has no problems but i havent bothered trying a third day.
i asked an optician about this and although he couldn't tell me straight-up that their lenses weren't really daily disposables(could cost the company alot of money!), he did say that he was aware people were wearing them for more than one day and they were fine. he did say however that more than 2 days could be pushing it which is why i never bothered.
now dailys are half the price!

Sadhu

I wear hard lenses, and never had a roblem. If I was taking an overnight train, I would wear my glasses so I could sleep. Otherwise, contacts are no problem. I agree with the poster who suggests wearing sunglasses.

__________________
'Walk the Earth, Have Adventures'

john.sw

The contact lens prescriptions for two of my children are readily available in India. They wear monthly disposables (wear for a month then throw away).

My wife's prescription is, apparently, not available. they say they can "get them" but it will take a month or two. That is because it is a more complicated prescription... toric/asitgmatism or whatever.

My younger daughter's prescription is also not readily available.

The lenses and solutions I buy in India are substantially cheaper than here in the UK, but we pay Blair Tax which makes everything a rip-off!

__________________
www.nilgiris.asia your guide to the Nilgiris, Ooty, Coonoor, Kotagiri and Gudalur

Jempoloni

I want to as much as possible avoid using my very ugly and not-so-up-to-date glasses during my four month stay in Himachal Pradesh. Is it risky to use daily contact lenses? I was thinking that I will use the lens solution to clean my hands as well. Any experiences with this issue? Thanx.

Kamo

have used lenses during both my visits to India, no problem! Use neutral wet napkins, works just fine to use soap and tapwater also...

john.sw

My wife and my son use monthly/daily disposables in India without any problems.

My son has a fairly ordinary prescription, and his lenses are readily available in India (same make as at home) for half the price we pay in the UK.

My wife's prescription is only available to order - that takes about a month!

Solutions are also easyly available and a lot cheaper than in the UK.