Back to Contact Lenses After Ten Years: A Dailies Total1 Review

After years in glasses, the thing I remembered most about contact lenses was how it felt to have something sitting on my eye. The lenses I had worn a decade earlier left my eyes dry and tired, sometimes red, after a few hours. Eventually I went back to glasses full-time.

A recommendation persuaded me to give contacts another try. I went in with modest expectations and came away with a different impression. The lenses I tried were Alcon’s Dailies Total1 daily disposables.

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What they felt like on the eye

The first surprise came as soon as I put them in. With my old lenses, there was usually a moment when my vision wavered and my eyes adjusted to the sensation. With this pair I could barely feel the lenses settle.

Blinking made the difference especially clear. I used to feel my eyelids skim across the lens every time. Here that sensation was faint enough that I soon forgot I was wearing contacts.

The difference held through a day of work, errands and getting around. My vision stayed steady, and I noticed little of the dryness or tiredness that used to send me back to my glasses after a few hours.

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A steady fit, with a surprise at the end of the day

The lenses felt steady on my eyes. I rarely noticed them shift or my focus waver, both sensations I remembered from my earlier experience with contacts.

That same feeling of a lens sitting close to the eye made removal harder for me at first. My old technique did not give me a good grip on it.

I struggled with removal for the first few days. I had assumed that a lens I could barely feel would be equally easy to take out.

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What helped with removal

What helped was learning the technique for removing a soft lens. The movement starts by sliding the lens down so there is an edge to grip.

Alcon’s instructions start with washing and drying your hands. Look up, use an index finger to guide the lens down onto the white of the eye, then lift it off gently using the pads of your thumb and index finger. Ask an eye-care professional for help if a lens remains difficult to remove.

Once I had practiced, I found removal easier than it had been with my old lenses. Learning the technique mattered more to me than how firmly the lens seemed to sit.

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After a day of wearing them

My strongest impression of the Dailies Total1 was how quickly I stopped thinking about them. For me, the dryness and sensation of something in my eye were both much less noticeable than I remembered.

Removal took practice during those first days. Once I could take them out comfortably, I could appreciate how steady they felt while I was wearing them.

After ten years in glasses, I had expected to spend the day getting used to contacts again. Instead, I spent most of it simply getting on with what I was doing.

Product information

Dailies Total1