I got my first pair of glasses when I was 13 years old. By the time I was 16, I had to wear them all the time, or risk stepping into potholes, bumping into classmates, or using the wrong bathroom. I quickly tired of the inevitable "four-eyes" comments, though, and begged my parents for contact lenses. (Thanks, parents!) Once I got used to the contacts, I thought they were the best thing since, well, you know. I wore them for several years, and then I heard about laser eye correction. I wanted to ditch the glasses and contacts immediately, but I waited until I was felt confident that this "new" surgery was something good. In short, I let a bunch of other people be the guinea pigs, and I waited to see how their surgeries turned out. (I waited 20 years, just to be on the safe side.)
Now that I've had LASIK, I want to discuss the various vision correction alternatives for anyone else out there waiting even longer than I did. (Chicken!) I promise to be totally fair and unbiased, even though I now have perfect vision, and the glasses and contacts which served me so faithfully met with a tragic accident involving a sledgehammer and a garbage disposal.
Simplicity: Glasses are clearly superior to contact lenses. You just get up, and put them on. Sure, you may have to clean off smudges once or twice during the day, and they steam up when you exercise or unload the dishwasher or have sex or - oh, you don't wear glasses during sex? Anyway, they're easy to use.
Saying contact lenses are a little more complicated than glasses is like saying plastic surgery is kind of popular in Hollywood. With contacts, you have to go through a whole series of steps to achieve clear vision each day.
1. Carefully wash your hands with anti-bacterial soap and find a clean, unused lint-free towel to dry them.
2. Remove the lens from the case and rinse it with some expensive solution. The manufacturers of the solution recommend that you use a lot.
3. Make that weird face where your mouth hangs open and you look like you are being tasered, and, holding your eyelids open with one or two fingers, pop that little piece of plastic (also known as a "foreign body") into your eye.
4. Immediately, swearing and cursing, take the lens back out, because a stray cat hair drifted into your eye, which, if you wear contacts, you know feels just like an entire cat landed in your cornea.
5. Repeat steps (2) and (3) as often as necessary, until the front of your shirt is drenched in expensive solution, your eyes look as swollen as if you'd gone three rounds Muhammed Ali, and you have to change everything you had on, including your shoes, but your vision is clear.
Lasik is even simpler than glasses. You go to the eye doctor, pay him loads of money, and he points a DANGEROUS LASER RIGHT INTO YOUR EYE. But, if you're lucky, he gives you Valium first.
Paraphernalia: Glasses beat contact lenses here too. All you need is a case to put them in at night, and a soft cloth (or the hem of your t-shirt, or even an old McDonalds napkin with hardly any ketchup) to clean them. Contacts come with a storage case, cleaning solution, soaking solution, protein deposit removal solution, lens rewetting solution, low-carbonic hydroxolating solution, furniture refinishing solution, and instructions for building a nuclear power plant. When you travel, you have to carry all that stuff and your glasses, in case you lose a lens or get tired of looking good. After LASIK, I need NO paraphernalia. I don't have to put my eyes in a case at night. When a kitten wakes me up by jumping on my face, I can easily see that it's 3am without fumbling for glasses. Nothing steams up my vision except the sauna at the Y.
Comfort: Both glasses and contacts have strong disadvantages in this area. The first week after purchasing your new contacts, you look surprised all the time because your eyes are wide open. And not because of how much they cost, which is a lot. No, you can't make your eyelids behave normally because, after all, There's Something In Your Eye! Of course, once you're used to the lenses, they hardly every bother you - only if get something in your eye, like a mote of dust, a skin cell, or a nano-probe*. Or if one of the lenses gets an infinitesimally small nick in it. Or if your eyes are dry. Or if it's windy. Or if you used the wrong solution. Or if you are alive.
But have you ever been hit in the face with sporting equipment, such as a basketball or soccer ball, when you had glasses on? Ouch! And if your glasses don't fit exactly right, the hockey sticks that go over your ears can dig into the side of your head causing unsightly divots (I recommend long hair so no one sees them.) And those little plastic nose-rest thingys? They also can pinch and cause craters deep enough to carry your contact lens case. Plus, if you're sweaty, or have oily skin (eewww) they will keep sliding down your face. And they fall off sometimes, so your glasses hang crooked, and you look deformed.
HA HA once again I must point out that, post-LASIK, I am completely comfortable. I could actually have an entire cat or even a borg drone* in my eye and it would barely make me blink! No, I am not still taking Valium.
Changing styles: Yes, I had fashionable glasses in the 80s. Yes, they now look like clown glasses. Hey, at the time, everyone had glasses that made them look like frightened insects. Of course, once I got contacts, I stopped replacing my glasses every time the styles changed. I mean, I only wore them for 45 seconds a day, just long enough to find my contacts. So, my most recent pair dated from the Jurassic period and on those rare occasions when I had to wear them, (such as the three weeks before the eye surgery) they caused howls of laughter from passersby and family members alike. I thought my girlfriend would wet her pants the first time she saw me in those honking big frames. She said I looked like the owl in the Tootsie Pop commercial.
I've had to endure style changes in my contact lenses, too. I tried the "toric" lenses, meant to correct astigmatism. No good, unless you're one of those "New Age" people who would enjoy seeing an aura around everything, including your furniture. I've had the kind of lens case where there's a bit of metal in the bottom, which causes the cleaning solution to effervesce. Suppose you don't get it all rinsed off! What would happen in your eyes? I don't want to think about it. Once, I tried a new contact lens solution with a preservative called Thimerosal. Turns out there's mercury in it! Turns out many people (myself included) are allergic to putting mercury in their eyes!
Once again, I am compelled to point out - eyes are always in style. I don't have to worry that "hazel just isn't in this year; everyone who's anyone has blue eyes", or "we're all poking ourselves in the eye with a sharp stick this year; good vision is so passe." I just open my eyes and I'm ready to face the day.
So, really, both glasses and contacts have some pretty serious drawbacks. Unlike LASIK, where the only drawback I can perceive is that whole "laser in your eye" thing. But all of these are better than no vision correction. Imagine living with really bad vision in the prehistoric era. You would be eaten by saber tooth tigers who woke up when you tripped over them, or trampled by angry mammoths as you stood in their path, squinting and asking "What is that noise?" Kinda makes you grateful for that low-carbonic hydroxolating solution.
*If you don't watch Star Trek, never mind.
