> > It amazes people to find I wear the hard gas permeable type as almost everyone I know couldn't get on with them. My optometrist says I have the most desensitized eyes he's seen.
>
> Hoorah for the hard-contact-lensed folk! Hard contacts are supposed to be healthier for the eyes after one gets used to them. They are also extraordinarily easy to pop in and out, there is no taboo about letting them get dry, and they can act as a brace to slow down change in vision. Plus, people sometimes will ask me what that thing on my eye is. The only drawback is the PAIN LIKE EVIL if the least speck of dust gets behind them.

I tried the hard gas permeable lenses in 1989. At the time I thought they were marvellous, in comparison to glasses. I gave up on them after a year because of the PAIN LIKE EVIL which you mention, the extraordinary ease with which they pop out (WHEN YOU DON'T WANT THEM TO) and the impossibility of wearing them when going out at night (I used to get a weird fuzzy halo effect in my vision at night, which I can only assume was from lights reflecting off the lenses somehow). They made me squint, too, and my eyes always felt watery.

I went back to glasses for the next ten years, hating them but thinking it was something I'd just have to put up with forever, since I seemed to be incompatible with contacts. When I decided to try contacts again, I was *amazed* at the difference with the modern soft disposable lenses. You literally can't tell you're wearing them.

Brunnen-"sounds like an advert"G