You’ve been wearing bifocal glasses for years, and you’re gotten sick of them. Having to wear your bifocals has stopped you from getting the fashionable sunglasses that you want for the summer. You have grown so disenchanted with bifocal glasses that you don’t bother with eye shadow, eyeliner, mascara, or any other kind of eye makeup. Why bother? They’ll be almost impossible to notice behind those thick, rather unsightly frames anyway.

While you will always be grateful to Benjamin Franklin, for inventing the bifocals, and yes your life is relatively more comfortable with them, you can’t help but wish that he had made them a little more stylish.

If this is how you feel about wearing bifocals everyday, then you will be delighted to know that as a result of technology there are finally bifocal contact lenses available in the market.

As you already know, bifocals are a special kind of corrective eyeglass lens that contains two different optical powers. Bifocals are most often used by people suffering from presbyopia, myopia, hyperopia, and even astigmatism.

Today most people will prefer contact lenses over the wearing of ordinary eyeglasses. For starters, a bifocal contact lens is less distracting, and unlike eyeglasses, you may even forget that you are wearing them. Also, they are more aesthetically pleasing, with no eyeglass frames getting in the way of people seeing your entire face, particularly your eyes. To a great many individuals, bifocal contact lenses are the obvious choice.

For those people who require bifocals, as the saying goes, bifocal contact lenses may be the best thing since sliced bread. After all, with bifocal contact lenses, you can enjoy all of the advantages of wearing bifocal eyeglasses without the hassle of the frames.

Before the bifocal contact lens was developed, people who required bifocals but wanted contact lenses would have to own two pairs, one for distance, and one for reading. Now, the bifocal contact lens solves the problem by answering your need to see clearly in the distance as well as close up.

Bifocal contact lenses are manufactured to two ways; they are either made from soft material – that is, gel-like substances that contain water, or rigid gas permeable material made of breathable plastic.

Replacement bifocal contact lenses are now readily available in the marketplace. Some, if this would be your preference, even allow daily replacement of your bifocal contacts. If constant replacement is inconvenient, in February 2006, bifocal contact lenses made of silicone hydrogel material also became available. These lenses allow you to wear them without removal up to thirty consecutive days.

However, heed this word of caution: beware of unapproved, unbranded, over-the-counter bifocal contact lenses. Always be sure when you purchase your bifocal contact lenses that they are FDA approved. Buying “off-label” contact lenses, whether bifocal or not, just to save a little money is not worth the risk. These bifocal contact lenses may cause serious harm to your eyesight, sometimes even resulting in blindness. Be smart, and safe, by only purchasing bifocal contact lenses that are prescribed by your doctor. Your eye doctor is legally prohibited from prescribing contact lenses that are not approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

Remember, before heading out to your neighborhood optical store, be sure to visit and consult with your eye doctor who is the best person to help you pick out the bifocal contact lenses that will meet your vision correction needs, and be perfectly safe.