Daily Contacts: Are They For You?

Today’s contact lenses, generally soft and disposable, have various schedules for wear and replacement.

Let’s say you have the usual 9-to-5 schedule: Your daily contacts would be worn during the day and tossed at night, making way for a new pair in the morning. Others are replaced every two weeks, or every month.

Your personal preferences and routines help determine which schedule works best for you. Each schedule has its own strengths. Here, we explore one day contact lenses.

The benefits of daily contacts or “dailies”

There’s a lot of upside to getting daily contacts:

• You never have to clean them - Forget about the nightly cleaning routine or your parade of solution bottles. At the end of a long day, just toss them out and go to bed.
• Dailies feature the easiest easy-to-remember wear schedule - No more calendar reminders about replacing your contacts. Take them out at night, and get a fresh pair every morning.
• Daily disposable contacts save time - In addition to cutting out daily cleaning time, you can carry spare pairs that save you trips home.
• They may help with eye allergies - With less time for deposits to build up, daily contacts give allergies less of a chance to flare. Also, a fresh, smooth lens surface every day is gentler on irritated eyes.
• Great with teenagers! How many parents wish they could say that? With all that’s going on from school to sports to social lives, teenagers are apt to forget or ignore cleaning and changing contacts. While neglecting this part of contact lens care can pose risks to their eyes, dailies make cleaning unnecessary and changing a breeze.

Other things to know about daily contact lenses

Since you toss them each day, you’ll need to buy more lenses. (And remember, you’ll need one box for each eye, so a 30-day supply means 60 contact lenses.)

Your optometrist will examine your eyes to find the right prescription. While you choose daily contacts or another wear schedule based largely on your preferences, your eye doctor can help you weigh the pros and cons based on her familiarity with your vision and eye care habits. 

Nothing in this article is to be construed as medical advice, nor is it intended to replace the recommendations of a medical professional. For specific questions, please see your eye care practitioner.