With all the benefits of GP hard contacts, why doesn’t everyone wear them? Well, soft contacts have their benefits and drawbacks as well, not the least of which is comfort and immediate cost. The comfort level of soft vs. hard contacts seems to be the number one benefit of soft contacts over hard contacts when patients are asked to weight the benefits and drawbacks of both hard vs. soft contacts. A benefit of soft contacts is that they are easier to adapt to.

Wile GP hard contacts have come a long way in comfort, the soft contacts, as the name implies, are soft. The increased comfort of soft contacts vs. hard contacts means less time, effort, and discomfort adapting to the new contacts in your eye.

GP hard contacts are more gas permeable than soft contacts. This allows more oxygen to reach the eye, something a healthy eye needs, than soft contacts do; which is a definite drawback for soft lenses. Hard contacts have the benefit advantage in gas permeability.

Another benefit of hard lenses is that they are more rigid and hold their shape better when you blink, which leads to clearer vision. A drawback of soft vs. hard contacts is the soft lenses move around a lot more and change shape, which can result in blurred vision.

GP hard contacts are also extremely durable. Hard vs. soft, the hard contacts have the benefit of not tearing as easily and not drying out as quickly, which means as long as your prescription doesn’t change, you could hold on to your hard contacts for several years. While this is a benefit for hard contacts in the long run, it’s a drawback in the immediate as they are more expensive than soft lenses.

Hard contacts also win in the hard vs. soft debate when it comes to patients with astigmatism, presbyopia, patients who need bi- or tri- focals, patients with cone-shaped corneas, and patients who need contacts after refractive eye surgery.

But it always comes back to the comfort, the main draw back of hard contacts. Hard vs. soft, soft lenses require less time to adapt. You may need to wear your hard contacts every day, vs. if you skip a few days of wearing soft lenses, you will not need time to adapt again to the lenses in your eye, a real drawback of hard contacts vs. soft contacts.