A few things about contacts from personal but not gym related experience.
1. Daily vs longer wear lenses and comfort levels
I) Daily wear lenses are more convenient and comfortable than longer wear lenses because they are thinner because they are not made to last as long, but they cost more per month than longer wear lenses.
II) I don't think they're harder to put in than longer wear lenses. Once you get the hang of sticking a tiny bit of glad wrap in your eye it doesn't make any difference really.
III) Not having to clean the lenses, particularly for a little person is worth the extra cost. If they're not properly cleaned, then little specks of chalk, dust, oil from skin sticks to the lenses and they sting when you put them in. You then have to pull them out and clean them again before trying again. This isn't much fun if you're in a rush.
IV) You can tell that longer wear lenses need replacing when they start stinging every time you out them in. An optometrist will tell you that you shouldn't let them get to this point, but, um, it happens. Proteins from your eyes also build up on the lenses after a while and this isn't good for your eyes which is why you change them.
V) Daily wear lenses can be a little harder to get out than longer wear lenses.
VI) If they feel uncomfortable, ask to try a different brand. Different lenses have different diameters and they feel quite different.
2. Getting them in and out of your eyes
I) If you whilst looking in the mirror in the bathroom can comfortably lightly touch your eye on the white, then you'll be fine putting in lenses with some practice. Don't poke yourself in the eye, just lightly touch with clean hands. You won't go blind or anything
II) Optometrists generally teach a method where they put it on the side of the eye and then slide to the centre. This has always seemed long winded to me.
I prefer to look in the mirror with the lens on the end of my finger. Pop in straight over the centre of my eye. Wobble it side to side a touch before taking my finger away to get rid of any air bubbles underneath (otherwise it might fold and come out of your eye the first time you blink). Blink carefully he first time, then blink a few more times, then you're set.
III) Don't panic if you have trouble getting a lens out. Firstly, stop and wait a bit or you'll end up with a sore red eye and get stressed because you can't get it out.
- Breathe.
- Make sure the lens is actually still in your eye. It's easy to keep trying and not realise that it's stuck to the side of your face. Can you see properly at a distance? No? Then it's already out of your eye.
- I find putting one finger at the left side of my lens and one on the right and pushing my fingers together is the easiest way to get it out. The lens bends and then you use those two fingers to lift it out of your eye.
- if it's hard to get out, it's probably because it's too dry and then sticks to the eye. Put in some saline or even wet your fingers under the tap and put a drop of water at the corner of your eye. Blink a few times and try again.
- unless you're wearing glass lenses (unlikely) they will not get stuck around the back of your eye. It's not going to happen. If it does get pushed into some weird spot, use saline. Blink lots and it will come back to somewhere sensible.
3. Other stuff
I) If you're used to using the front or back of you hand, arm, whatever, to get hair out of your eyes, then use more gel so you don't need to. Dust/chalk/glitter and contacts don't mix well and even once it's out, your eyes can water for a bit afterwards.
II) Don't forget that for longer wear lenses you are supposed to give your eyes a little time to breathe between taking the lenses out and going to bed. This allows more oxygen into the eyes.
If your gymmie sleeps in the car on the way home, get the lenses out before they leave the gym.
Lenses get kind of sticky and hard to get out of eyes if you sleep in them (which you're not supposed to). Use saline if this happens.
II) I used to do sport with glasses and there was always this fear in the back of my mind of breaking them or of them falling off. Contacts would have helped me a lot.
III) It's hard to judge distances if you can't see properly, so running fast at immovable objects will improve if you can see them.
4. Two things you probably would never have thought of...
I) Things look bigger
When you're wearing contacts then lens is closer to the eye. Things really do appear larger than when wearing glasses. If you don't notice this, then great. But it can be disconcerting at first and you do have to readjust.
Every time I wear contacts after not wearing them for months I'm surprised because my hands look bigger and I wonder why the chocolate bars are so much larger than they normally are (Seriously, at uni I kept thinking they'd changed the sizes). You adjust quickly to this, but it wouldn't be ideal to do something like say wear glasses then change to lenses just before competing. Give yourself some leeway until you know how much this affects you.
And the big one:
II) Headaches.
If you/they have been wearing glasses a lot, not just to see the board at school, but pretty much all the time, then the eye muscles are used for a narrower range of vision than normal as the eye can only see through the glasses lenses so there is no need to move your eyes to look out the corners.
Because a greater field of vision is suddenly available with lenses, you end up moving your eyes more and the poor muscles are out of shape.
This is one of the main reasons why they may ask you to progressively increase the duration you wear them, so you don't get sore eyes and headaches as a result.
I notice this every time I return to wearing them after months of not wearing them.
