Dailies vs Monthly Contact Lenses

Most contact lens wearers will know that when starting your contact lens journey, all the technical information can be quite overwhelming and the choices seem never-ending…monthlies or dailies, spherical or toric, multifocal or monovision, silicon-hydrogel or hydrogel. 

To assist - let us zoom in a bit on Monthly and Daily contact lenses:

What is the best you may ask? 

Most people are cost-sensitive, especially currently, and with good reason. 

Dailies are often thought of as a lot more expensive, when in fact depending on your wearing schedule, you can save a buck or two or maybe an eye.

If you are an occasional wearer, considering the cost of a set of daily contact lenses per day might work out cheaper than monthlies, depending on how often you use them. 

Using a set of Dailies, you will have the luxury of disposing it at the end of the day, eliminating the cost of solutions to store it in and limiting lipid and protein deposits (a big culprit in eye discomfort) and microbial growth on the lens.

If you look at the cost of your monthly contact lenses and you work out what it will cost you per day, it is cheaper for the everyday wearer, compared to daily contact lenses. Just to rule out all confusion, monthly contact lenses should be discarded after 30 consecutive days of opening the container, and not 30 times’ use, due to the preservative only being effective for this period.

With all this being said, South Africa’s lovely sunny weather supports the adventurous by heart and a splash in the pool or a hike in the mountains is always welcome. This can be quite a costly expedition considering that it is advisable not to wear contact lenses that had contact with freshwater, due to microbials that can penetrate the cornea and result in ulcers and infections and worst-case scenario a corneal transplant. 

Having a set of Dailies to alternate your Monthly contact lenses for this type of activities, will result in comfortable vision throughout the month and will also cost you less than to discard a monthly lens that still had some time left on the clock.

What is the best you may ask? In my opinion, go for both.