I’ve been wearing glasses since I was about four years old when I was diagnosed as being short sighted and would need to wear glasses full time. I have tried all manor of frames since then, ranging from the thick rimmed NHS glasses when I was a child to the more fashionable frame-less ones in recent years.
I don’t remember feeling self conscious about wearing glasses until I went to secondary school. There I was teased off and one with the usual name calling for wearing glasses, such as four eyes and bottle top! By the time I reached fifteen I hated wearing my glasses.
Both my parents wore glasses, my father due to being short sighted and he is also colour blind and my mother wore glasses for reading etc. My parents were both sympathetic but felt I should ignore the teasing. I did this for a while and things improved.
As I got older and started going out with friends on weekends and boys started to factor into things I again became more aware of my glasses and felt they made me unattractive, which now with age and hindsight I know was a silly thing to think. I started not wearing my glasses on nights out and coped well, in fact I quite liked the fact I looked different from when I was wearing glasses. My parents weren’t too pleased I wasn’t wearing my glasses as I should be but knew if they made a fuss I would rebel more.
I found that not wearing my glasses for a few hours every couple of weeks wasn’t a huge issue, I coped well, could see where I was going and I felt more confident without them. Around the time I turned seventeen I asked my parents if I could try contact lenses and they agreed. So I went along to my local optician to discuss the possibility and be fitted. I was fitted with single use contact lenses that day. I was really pleased with the outcome and couldn’t wait to see if people noticed I wasn’t wearing glasses.
That evening when I went to take the contact lenses out I struggled to get hold of one of them and I began to panic that I wouldn’t be able to take the contact lenses out. I managed to get one out after I calmed myself down but the second lense proved more difficult. By the time I had managed it with a little help from my then boyfriend my eye had become really swollen and puffy. I looked like I had gone ten rounds in a boxing ring, I felt very sorry for myself and couldn’t understand why I had struggled.
The next day I called back at the opticians to tell them what had happened. The experience was enough to put me off contact lenses as I was scared it would happen again. The optician did nothing to reassure me or help me so I decided to carry on as I had been with not wearing my glasses on nights out.
A couple a years later when I was in university I meet dad of 3, the first time we meet he wasn’t wearing glasses so I didn’t think anything of it. So when we meet up a few days later and he was wearing glasses I was puzzled until he said he had been wearing contact lenses when we first met. I told him about my bad experience with them. Dad of 3 explained he had never had a problem with contact lenses and alternates with ease between glasses and contact lenses.
For the twelve years that we have been together he has continued to do this. From time to time he has tried to persuade me that I should give contact lenses another go but so far I have been reluctant. I am more at ease with wearing glasses now and even have two pairs of glasses which I can alternate to suit my mood!
Last year I took Luc (our eldest son) to have his eyes checked after he had been experiencing headaches off and on for a while. He was diagnosed as being slightly short sighted and prescribed glasses to wear when watching TV, doing his work in school, reading and playing computer games. Luc was so pleased with the glasses he choose and they were nothing like my first pair of glasses.
Luc started off well wearing his glasses without having to be reminded and myself and dad of 3 were really pleased. However when he returned to school after the holidays we began to notice Luc would not be wearing his glasses when he should. Both myself and dad of 3 spoke to him about it to try and find out why he wasn’t wearing them but he would simply say he’d forgotten. We didn’t push the issue but kept an eye on the situation as we suspected he may be getting teased at school.
The last eight months have been pretty hit and miss with regards Luc wearing his glasses. He has misplaced them on several occasions and forgotten to wear them on countless other occasions. Each time I have reminded him why he has glasses to wear and that if he doesn’t wear them as he should he may need to wear glasses full time like myself. Since the start of the Summer holidays he has been a lot better with wearing his glasses however with that said he has ‘forgotten’ to take them with him when he’s gone away for a few days! I will be making his check up appointment in the next couple of weeks and I think I will have to be discussing the problems we’ve had with the optician and looking at what options are available to him.
Back in June this year I attended Britmums Live in London where I had the opportunity to meet with the ACUVUE team. This gave me the chance to chat about my experience with contact lenses and I learnt more about the ACUVUE range. It was here that I realised that children as young as 5 years old can wear contact lenses, something I didn’t know previously.
Disclaimer: “I wrote this review while participating in an influencer campaign on behalf of Johnson & Johnson Vision Care and received a promotional item to thank me for taking the time to participate.”