Why They Chose Lasik over Contacts/Specs

In the past 15 years since LSC Eye Clinic started, we have helped more than 85,000 individuals achieve clearer vision without the need for spectacles and contact lenses. Over the years, our LSC eye team has heard all kinds of reasons why people chose to take the step and get LASIK done, but they can be classified into a few key reasons.

For those of you who are considering Lasik, do any of these reasons relate to you?

Being free from contact lenses is definitely a time-saver for most people. With corrected vision, one doesn’t have to spend those extra minutes putting on contacts while still sleepy in the morning, and removing them at night. For those who pull in late nights either for work or social reasons, they no longer have to worry about crashing in bed once they reach home since there’s no more contact lenses to remove.

Individuals who enjoy travelling cite reasons like the ability to stay out for longer hours when overseas, without worrying about wearing their lenses for too long. Also, when they’re in countries with dry air or low humidity, they are not as affected by dry eyes from contact lens-wearing. What’s more, isn’t it more convenient to skip the packing of contact lens solutions and/or spectacle boxes when traveling? Imagine, taking these items in and out of your luggage as you move around different accommodations during a trip.

Those in the spectacle camp, while not affected by contact lens woes, have shared other benefits of convenience as well. In a country like Singapore, where we have high humidity, it is common for most of us to have facial oil on our faces by mid-day. Some of those who wear glasses often have to adjust their glasses frequently as it slides down their nose, especially if they need to be moving about outdoors. Yes, it could be a trivial reason for those who do not wear glasses, but we can certainly empathise with those who have to repeat such actions on a daily basis, many times a day!

Many individuals choose Lasik for aesthetic reasons as well. While the same objective can be achieved with contact lenses, many contact lens wearers choose to undergo vision correction so that they can always be without glasses e.g. staying overnight with friends, working overnight etc, having the confidence to put their best face forward, in their own terms.

We’ve met many individuals with really high degrees of myopia and/or astigmatism, they experience waking up feeling almost blinded by blurry vision until the moment when they put on their glasses. Higher degrees also comes with the struggle of getting fancy looking glasses only to have their thick lenses protruding out of the sides of the frames. Aside from thicker lenses, spectacles and contact lenses for astigmatism are also double the price of standard lenses.

People with astigmatism can’t buy contact lenses without having to preorder them, unlike individuals who have only myopia, can pop into an optical store and grab a box of myopic lenses off the shelf. For people with both myopia and astigmatism, it is more than just waiting for the contact lenses to be ready – toric lenses are also more costly than the standard myopic lenses.

People who spend long hours in front of the computer often suffer from eye strain, this can be commonly seen among gamers and people who work in tech industries, even students who are pursuing their studies in computing or programming. For them, their eyes get tired easily, even with spectacles, and it was worse with contact lenses as their vision started to get blurry after a few hours!