Glasses and contact lenses while hiking
The oldest and generations-tested means of combating poor vision is glasses, the choice of which is very large. When used correctly, glasses have a number of undeniable advantages. First of all, you can see through them! Secondly, skillfully selected glasses are a good decoration that creates a certain style of a person. A huge selection of frames gives you the opportunity to let your imagination run wild and add some zest to your look. The glasses are very easy to use - just put it on your nose and go into battle! But everyone who wears glasses (forced, and not for beauty) knows that there are problems with them too:
* they sometimes fight;
* in the bright sun they give glare;
* when it rains they are flooded;
* in cold weather they freeze the bridge of the nose and fog up.
* in the heat, the nose under them sweats, and they slide off;
* they cling to everything and fall off.
* But the most important thing is that they are uncomfortable to kiss in! (and a tourist can’t live without romance)
I think that most glasses owners know how to deal with these inconveniences. In general, there’s nothing wrong with it, you get used to it and don’t experience any big problems. But this is only in everyday life. All of the above disadvantages are exacerbated when you are on a hike. For example, I can say for sure that the glare from the sun often leads, for example on a bike ride, to falling into an unnoticed hole (hole/pit!), and a little drizzling rain when riding a bike “with the breeze” turns the surrounding world into a collection of drops, behind which it is extremely difficult to see anything. In addition, falling off a bicycle while wearing glasses is fraught with either loss of glasses or even injury. For example, during a bike ride in the Czech Republic, one girl fell off her bike on a bend and was braking on fairly large gravel with her face, which she was wearing glasses (at the moment of braking with her face, glasses must be taken off). As a result, a deep cut formed on his cheek, which even had to be stitched up. Such an injury is rare, but getting a bruise or being scratched on the frame of your glasses is a piece of cake!
I will give a few recommendations (developed from my own mistakes) for those who use glasses when cycling and hiking.
First: it is better to have at least two pairs of glasses (especially for those who, without them, cannot see further than their nose). For example, I have “civilian” glasses for going to work, going to museums/theaters and other “hot spots” and for sports. It is advisable to have strong sports glasses (thin, elegant frames, which are usually very fragile) and streamlined in shape. I prefer modern, inexpensive frames - fashionable and not too bad if lost. There are sports cycling glasses on sale with special frames for the lenses inside the glasses. That is, glasses in glasses.
It’s better not to put plain glass in “sports” glasses. For a long time there have been polymers that practically do not break (although they are very scratched) and if they are split, they do not produce sharp fragments. They are a little more expensive, but worth it. In addition, there are all kinds of anti-reflective coatings for both polymer and regular glass, but it should be noted that they do not help much. A cap or helmet with a visor is much more effective in this sense, especially since they partially protect from raindrops. And a chain (rope/elastic band) for glasses will not allow your glasses to fly under your wheels on a dirt road broken by a tractor (although I prefer instead comfortable frames that fit like a glove - I have never dropped them off my nose). Having both pairs of glasses on a hike will protect you from involuntary blindness if one of them breaks or is lost. This is especially important for autonomous routes, when the nearest optical store is a couple of days away.
Think about how and with what you will wipe your glasses while driving. Believe me, after a certain number of kilometers off-road (especially after rain), you will want to dig a hole in the thick layer of clay/chernozem that has settled directly on the windows. Of course, a handkerchief or a T-shirt sleeve can also be used for this, but I prefer special napkins - they can be used to smear the dirt flying from under the wheels much faster. By the way, the main advantage of glasses, besides ease of use, in my opinion, is precisely that they protect the eyes from dust, dirt and insects getting into the eyes. Although worse than cycling glasses specially created for this purpose.
How to store and transport glasses while hiking? In a special case for glasses, iron or plastic. However, the material is not important, as long as it is “conventional”.
The fight for vision: part two. Contact lenses (SCL).
Still, in my opinion, the discomfort from driving with glasses is too great. Therefore, it is preferable to use soft contact lenses (SCL), which have now become very popular. They:
* never fog up;
* do not get cold nose and ears;
* in rain, sleet and fog they are perfectly visible;
* in case of an accident or fall, they will not cause injury to the face;
* do not limit visibility in any direction;
* do not fall off from shaking;
* and most importantly, well-chosen lenses are absolutely not felt and do not interfere.
There is an opinion that the eyes turn red from the lenses, the lacrimal gland “dries out,” the eyes acquire a specific shine (either greedy or predatory), a myriad of diseases are provoked, and so on. I have been wearing lenses for over 4 years. As for the shine in the eyes and other cosmetic effects from SCL, I conducted an experiment with people close to me: one eye with a lens, the other without. The result is that no one noticed the difference! Only when I lost control of myself and, out of habit, squinted my poorly seeing eye to focus, the lens was discovered. I would like to point out once again that good and correctly selected lenses are absolutely not felt in the eyes and are practically invisible.
However, unlike glasses, lenses require care and attention, especially since it is much more difficult to do this in hiking conditions. How to care for your lenses is explained in detail when you select them from your doctor. I will not dwell on this, I will only note the main points.
So, there are different kinds of lenses. Long-term wear (a year, six months, 3 months, a month) and one-time wear (also different service life from one day to several weeks). Long-term wear lenses must be removed during sleep. Night & Day lenses from Pure Vision can be worn for a month without taking them off, they cost 40 USD. Disposable ones - do not require removal - they are put on, worn for the prescribed time, then taken out and thrown away. Long-term wear SCLs are still more popular due to their price. Single-use (one-day) tickets cost about $1 per pair. On our market they are represented by Focus and Jonson & Jonson.
There really isn't that much fiddling around with lenses. In the morning, with clean hands, I took them out of a special container and inserted them into my eyes, and in the evening, with clean hands, I took them out of my eyes and put them in a container, not forgetting to change the saline solution in which they were stored. The main problems, of course, appear during the hike.
To begin with, I’d like to note that lenses need to be cleaned more thoroughly when hiking. An evening spent by the fire, even the smokiest one, will not affect the lenses in any way if you clean them thoroughly afterward. Of course, it is better to avoid direct contact with smoke in the eyes, but you should not shy away from the slightest appearance of it. It has been noticed that in the lenses the eyes are not afraid of either smoke or onions - no matter how thick the “polyethylene” protection is on the eyes. We won't cry! To care for SCL, I prefer to use an imported universal saline solution, which also removes protein. Sometimes sold in disposable bottles of 10 ml, which is enough for evening soaking and morning rinsing.
The main problem that an SCL owner faces when hiking is the problem of “clean hands.” Obviously, it is preferable to get into your eyes with clean hands. Doctors even categorically insist on it. On a hike, of course, this is not easy to ensure (especially in winter conditions, or in “dry” parking lots). A few alcohol wipes that you need to take with you solve the problem. Wipe your hands with them to the “required state”, and everything will be fine. Just note that getting alcohol in your eyes is unpleasant. Therefore, do not touch your eyes immediately, give the alcohol a chance to evaporate from the surface of your hands. In addition, you should remember that the solution for caring for SCLs is usually sterile and you can also wipe your hands with it - it won’t make things worse. But ordinary water is quite suitable for rinsing and for overnight storage if the solution gets lost somewhere. It is better not to use carbonated water, since at night the lens will float on a gas bubble, dry out in the air and lose its shape, most likely irrevocably. There is also a cleaning gel for sale that evaporates from the hands without a trace.There is a completely natural way to clean your hands: I sometimes had to put my finger in my mouth, suck it thoroughly, spit out what had accumulated on it during the day, “rinse” it again and then take out the lens. Foreigners sometimes pull out and insert lenses with special plastic tweezers, but we don’t have these on sale.
Saline solution can also be dropped into the eyes. For example, once at a bicycle orienteering competition I got a mosquito in my eye. And it didn’t just hit, but spread evenly onto the lens. There was no way to pull it out while moving. No one stopped the mosquito competition for the sake of it, and precious time was running out. I had to remove the lens with the hands I had available (well, of course, I shook them off and even rubbed them on my cycling shirt). A drop of solution into the eyes, lenses into the container, glasses on the nose and off you go. And nothing. There were no terrible diseases. Of course, if life forced you to remove your lenses in unsanitary conditions, then do not immediately put them back on your eyes, give them the opportunity to be disinfected and washed in a container with saline solution. And put them back on with clean hands.
What lenses really don't like is dust. It can be very difficult to drive in them in the summer on a sandy road in dry weather. Sand and dust get into your eyes. And if an ordinary person blinked his eyes, rubbed his finger and the order, then SCL carriers may have troubles. The fact is that removing foreign objects from an eye that has a lens is much more difficult. Blinking alone is not enough. If such a problem has happened to you, do not rub your eyes under any circumstances, even if you really want to. You will rub dirt into the lens and will have to remove it and rinse it. It is better to close the affected eye for a few minutes, and then blink carefully, trying to cause copious tears. If it doesn’t help, drop the same saline solution into the eye and rinse.
It is better, of course, to prevent this problem. For example, in the summer it’s nice to wear dark glasses; they protect from the sun and dust. There are also special cycling glasses designed specifically for protection from dust. So lenses are lenses, but you still need glasses. Just don’t forget that you can take off your dark glasses or safety glasses at any time, but those with prescription glasses are doomed to wear them the entire trip!
Another problem I encountered with wearing SCLs only applies to winter hiking. It should be noted that, despite the fact that saline solution is a salt solution, it freezes even at not very low temperatures. I once went to bed in a tent, it was cool, 18 degrees below zero. I leave the lens container and see two pieces of ice instead of the usual liquid. Since then, I have carried the container and bottle of liquid directly on myself (and not in my backpack) starting from a temperature of 0 degrees. This is, of course, reinsurance, but not a single bottle of saline solution had the recommended storage temperature go into the sub-zero region.
Otherwise, in my opinion, caring for contact lenses on a hike is no different from the usual city care. Just in case, it’s a good idea to have either tetracycline eye ointment or levomecithin solution with you, in case something bad happens to your eyes. We must remember that careless handling of lenses can cause irritation or inflammation. In this case, it is better to have medicine and replacement glasses. For me, “working” with lenses takes 5-10 minutes in the morning and evening, with disposable ones it’s faster.
This is such a sad picture. Yes, it’s better to have healthy eyes. But there's no need to despair. It is an active lifestyle that will help, if not restore, then at least preserve the remnants of vision. So put lenses in your eyes, glasses in your pocket and go ahead to see and win!
information with the site http://www.activeinfo.ru