Contact Lenses: What's the landscape nowadays?

My son wants contacts. I have no problem with that, but I am wondering how much this will add to my monthly budget. I've been wearing contact lenses for 40 years, but I wear gas permeable, not the soft lenses that 99.99% of people wear. So what's common now? Daily disposables? Extended wear? Daily non-disposables? What's the most cost-effective?

TIA.

Love my extended wear lenses. Acuview2. Costs me around $60 for two boxes (six lenses each). The directions he gets from the optometrist will be along the lines of, wear them for a week, clean them, wear them another week, then throw away and put new ones in. So figure around $60 for three months. 

If you have a Costco membership they come in at around $40. 

I use Bausch and Lomb or Alcon extended wear. I replace them monthly. A box runs about $55 that lasts 3 months. Usually if I get my comprehensive eye exam and prescription and a year's worth of supply at the same time, they run a promo and I get anywhere from $60-$100 visa gift card rebate. This year's supply cost me $7 after the rebate. 

I wear daily disposable contacts. I had issues with extended wear (the ones you sleep in) causing pink veins to appear on my eyball, and switched to disposable, and have had no issues with them.

I don't wear them every day, so getting a 6-month supply lasts me over a year. They can be ordered online for less. If you buy them for $45 for a 90 day pack (for one eye), then it's $90 for both eyes for 90 days -- which is a dollar a day.  (Mine cost a bit less than that).

Thanks, everyone. So it looks like about $250/year for extended wear, and about $350/year for daily disposables.

Minor thing, but there is no need for solution, cleaner, cases or vigilance with daily wear lenses. I switched a year ago and they are a huge improvement. If there is a concern about hygiene, daily lenses might be the way to go.

j_r said:

Minor thing, but there is no need for solution, cleaner, cases or vigilance with daily wear lenses. I switched a year ago and they are a huge improvement. If there is a concern about hygiene, daily lenses might be the way to go.

Thanks. I indeed was thinking about the solutions. I spend about $120/year on solutions for my gas permeables. But I replace the lenses every three years or so. They cost about $300 to replace. So I guess it's close to even.

I was told that it is not "ideal" to sleep in contacts, even the extended wear ones. I have had to have surgery to correct an eye issue related to an infection that I may have gotten from my use of contacts. I believe for kids, even teens/college, the daily wears are highly recommended for hygiene reasons.

Second the notion that, specifically related to young men and contact lenses (having both been one and raised one), daily wear are a good idea.

max_weisenfeld said:

Second the notion that, specifically related to young men and contact lenses (having both been one and raised one), daily wear are a good idea.

Having seen an article of a woman from whom doctors removed 27 contact lenses embedded in her eye when she went to get cataract eye surgery, I can agree with dailies. 

I have no idea how that 27 contacts thing happened. Seems much more likely she wore dailies than not. That said, my son started out with two-week lenses but refused not to wear them if he had an eye infection, etc. Dailies are worth the peace of mind. But yes, not cheap. I've found Walgreens to have the best prices, because there's nearly always (or always?) a discount code. I am curious about the Hubble contacts that are advertised on Facebook, but I know nothing about them.

zucca said:

I have no idea how that 27 contacts thing happened. Seems much more likely she wore dailies than not. That said, my son started out with two-week lenses but refused not to wear them if he had an eye infection, etc. Dailies are worth the peace of mind. But yes, not cheap. I've found Walgreens to have the best prices, because there's nearly always (or always?) a discount code. I am curious about the Hubble contacts that are advertised on Facebook, but I know nothing about them.

She, in fact, did not. She wore monthly ones (are those extended wear?). I was so astonished by the article but probably not as astonished as her doctors. 

marylago said:

zucca said:

I have no idea how that 27 contacts thing happened. Seems much more likely she wore dailies than not. That said, my son started out with two-week lenses but refused not to wear them if he had an eye infection, etc. Dailies are worth the peace of mind. But yes, not cheap. I've found Walgreens to have the best prices, because there's nearly always (or always?) a discount code. I am curious about the Hubble contacts that are advertised on Facebook, but I know nothing about them.

She, in fact, did not. She wore monthly ones (are those extended wear?). I was so astonished by the article but probably not as astonished as her doctors. 

I don't know how she went so long. If in so much as forget to remove my contacts my eyes itch and have a ton of discharge. When I was younger I could go weeks without removing them, not anymore.  

Did she think they just dissolved after a month? Crazy.

27?! Yuk. There's an argument for good old fashioned hard (now a days, rigid gas permeable/RGP) lenses. Like shoshannah, I'm in the .01%. Have also worn them for >40 years. But I don't suppose there is any way to talk a young person into them...

finnegan said:

27?! Yuk. There's an argument for good old fashioned hard (now a days, rigid gas permeable/RGP) lenses. Like shoshannah, I'm in the .01%. Have also worn them for >40 years. But I don't suppose there is any way to talk a young person into them...

I once tried soft lenses, about 30 years ago. I couldn't see as well! The difference was striking. I understand that for extremely nearsighted people like me, soft lenses do not correct well enough.

finnegan said:

27?! Yuk. There's an argument for good old fashioned hard (now a days, rigid gas permeable/RGP) lenses. Like shoshannah, I'm in the .01%. Have also worn them for >40 years. But I don't suppose there is any way to talk a young person into them...

I am also part of this extremely small minority who wears the RGP lenses.  I have been wearing them for about 30 years.  I've had so many ophthalmologists tell me that if they switch me now, I will be back in their office saying my vision isn't as good anymore.  Unfortunately, many optometrists don't seem to know how to deal with them and how to measure my eye for them. 

That said, I think if I were to do it again without any knowledge of the RGP lenses, I'd go with the daily wear lenses.

I wore RGP lenses for over 30 years and loved them. I have significant astigmatism and was told early on that soft lenses would not correct my vision. That is not true today as soft lenses deal with astigmatism much better. I had to give up the RGP lenses though a few years ago because my aging eyes have gotten very dry and I just couldn't tolerate them for long periods of time. So now I wear soft and frankly, I miss my RGP lenses! My vision is not as good with the soft, but that could also be due to aging eyes.

Soft (toric lenses) correct astigmatism but not as well as well as RGPs.

Roland said:

Soft (toric lenses) correct astigmatism but not as well as well as RGPs.

I've noticed the difference when I've tried soft. It would be very difficult to adjust to soft after so many years of RGB because the vision is not as sharp.