Would contacts be cheaper than my ridiculously expensive glasses?

[InterFactual]

I have a severe astigmatism, very short sighted (around -10) and this year I've just started wearing varifocals.

Current glasses cost £500 and absolutely gutted my tiny savings account. Would contacts be cheaper?

I tried contacts years ago when my vision wasn't as bad, before I needed varifocals. I didn't get on with the toric ones , I found them thick, scratchy and uncomfortable but this is nearly 20 years ago. Are they any better these days? Can they even prescribe them for astigmatism plus varifocal?

This is a very good point. You would still need glasses at various times of the day. Reading in bed, when you first wake up, swimming, showering etc.

Very good point about still needing glasses at certain times, I never thought of that. I suppose for me it wouldn't be cost effective then.

I do have a cataract starting caused by radiation treatment for a type of eye cancer. It's not bad enough to stop me driving yet though and I think because of the cancer they're more reluctant to do anything surgical unless absolutely necessary. 8 years since treatment so hoping it's gone but as they've insisted on yearly checks for life it doesn't fill me with optimism. I imagine it would be an issue going private too.

Have you checked out online glasses websites, in case you don't get on with contact lenses?

I do a lens free day once a week, so you wouldn’t need a new pair unless your px changes a lot.

I'm glad you live in a more civilised place than the UK! I've often thought at this strength of prescription it is almost a disability, I am so blind without my glasses it's actually impossible to do anything. It angers me that the most the NHS will contribute to my glasses is £14. What on earth are we bloody paying taxes here for! (And don't get me started on NHS dental treatment...)

I have astigmatism and wear multifocals, dailies from Specsavers. They cost £52 for a month but the optician said I can only wear them for a maximum of 8hrs a day. So I still need my glasses.

I buy lenses online from visiondirect (you need to know prescription). Order by 11pm and they arrive next day. I wear monthly silicone lenses all day/night. I don't keep them in overnight, but they're extended wear and very comfortable (I use biofinity). 3 x astigmatism lenses £18. So £36 for 3 months + solutions (I use opti-free) about £16 for 3 months (2 large bottles). Not sure if they'll work your prescription, but I find using an optician for tests and ordering online cheaper/quicker.

If you get varifocals, the NHS contribution goes up to about £40, rather than just £14. (Which is still nothing compared to the cost of the £700+ glasses though!!). I think there might also be an extra £15 or something for things like prisms.

@OldTinHat do you really have daily lenses that cover astigmatism and are multifocal? that is what I'm looking for but haven't found yet! I know it's still very unlikely that they'll come in my prescription, as most toric ones don't, but it would mean that they were getting closer to having the right thing.

It's not really surgical, you have a local anaesthetic and they put it in @InterFactual such a difference in colour and vision. My neighbour has had both done she's had cancer. It's worth investigating.

Dd is -12 and -13 and happily wears her daily disposables from waking to bed. But she has glasses as well. If you did have a day when your eyes were tired or you’d scratched your eye and needed to not wear your lenses for a few days you’d need glasses. Even just for getting up in the night, etc. or if there’s a fire…..I’d grab my glasses before running out the house but wouldn’t have time to put lenses in.

You didn't even bother to reply to me, so I won't to the other posters who have postered stuff that is either irreverent or won't work.

Wrong thread?

No, I'm an optometrist with 30 years experience of fitting contact lenses and doing refractive surgery.

I am 25 per month for lenses from specsavers that I can sleep in etc. So I wear them 24/7. Very handy.

@BaconWaffles which brand do the astigmatism ones in a high enough prescription please as mine only go up to -8.5 which isn’t strong enough.

Where did you buy your glasses? Asda or Specsavers are about half the price of the opticians locally to me.

Don't you mean opthalmologist rather than an optometrist?

Someone beat me to it but honestly go to asda. I didn't believe what others said are correct until I went. I can get varifocal superthinned lenses for my vv short sightedness with astigmatism for £80.
I'd already bought glasses when I took DS to get some and was stunned. I'm going to order prescription sunglasses at those prices though.

Do you mean really high astigmatism? I don't know of any that do that. The one I had does moderate astigmatism (up to -2.25 I think), but it does it at all the angles, in 10 deg steps, at whichever cyl power and sphere power, which is the crucial bit for me. So many brands don't do the oblique angles, or if they do, they only do them for the lower powers.

it's called my day, by coopervision, and it does up to -10.0 for spherical.

Sadly it just doesn't seem to fit me that well, spins in my eye a bit. But it's the only one available with my combination in a daily lens.

no multifocal with it of course.

I have astigmatism in both eyes and have multi-focal lenses. My prescription isn't anywhere near as much as yours, and I can only get contacts that are just about good enough (have tried what feels like a gazillion options). I still need my varifocal glasses for some circumstances (and at home when I take my lenses out etc.).

When you next need glasses maybe try vision express? They do a payment plan I think?

My prescription strength is similar to yours as well as me having astigmatism, although I don't need varifocals, so I don't know how much of a difference that makes.

I get my monthly soft contact lenses which I wear for 2 weeks at a time from Boots the Opticians, via the Contact lenses by post (CLBP) scheme.

I started off with contact lenses 25 years ago under Dolland & Aitchison. Due to my astigmatism they were the hard gas permeable lenses, and could sometimes take me up to an hour to put in/take out. I persevered with them as my 16 year old self hated wearing thick glasses more.

The soft CLBP scheme from Boots the Opticians costs me about £30 a month. It also gives you half price on all full pairs of glasses, so yours would have been £250 instead. They also do the ultra thin lenses which are factored in to the costs. Plus you get Boots Advantage points on the CLBP schemes which builds up really quickly given the monthly spend, so I regularly go into Boots to buy something, and am then told I have £10 I can use from my advantage card.

If you haven't already, I would try Boots the Opticians, personally I have had very good experiences there.

I'm mid 50s, -10 with mild astigmatism in one eye and have been wearing contacts, gas permeable for 20 years and now monthlies full time since I was 17 (with single vision glasses for backup).

I can't get multi-focal contacts for my prescription but did the monovision thing (one lens under-corrected) to help with reading successfully for several years through lots of tweaks of prescription - I have a check every 6 months. Worth trying definitely.

Eventually however the compromise was too much on both distance and reading so I switched to very slightly under-corrected in both eyes which is fine for everything except night driving on unlit roads.

So I have a pair of full strength single vision glasses for that but can't read in them, my old glasses (at least 6 years old), for day to day backup as they are still good all-rounders for reading, computer use, day to day driving. I use the magnifying app on my phone if I need to read tiny print on dark backgrounds whilst wearing contacts but can still read the tiniest print in the eye test with them. With this combo I have not needed either varifocals or reading glasses yet.

I have ruled out lens replacement unless I get cataracts as I still have amazing super close vision which is really useful at times, I can pop my glasses off to eg see a splinter in my finger or read really tiny print.

Just to point out that cataract operations don’t always completely correct your vision. They remove the cataract - a growth over the lens - but you may still need glasses.

I wear daily disposable varifocal contact lenses. I go to an independent optometrist in my town and it is £50 a month which includes annual check and any issues in-between. I just bought new varifocal glasses and they were very expensive as I tried before with cheaper lenses and just couldn't wear them. So I took the plunge and got top of the range Nikon thinnest lenses. They were about £800 all in though I paid less as a regular customer.

My eyes are getting drier as I get older, despite HRT. So I need to start wearing my glasses more and lenses a bit less. I struggle with the expense but I need to see, so just have to prioritise it. I started wearing glasses at 13 and lenses at 17 so it has been part of my life for a very long time!