[monkey00]

Basically I've been wearing glasses all my life, never once have I tried contacts before. I've decided I might as well now. I really want to transition but I don't know how to start it off.

Where do I go about seeking the best advice/prescription/ contact types I need? How do I go about doing it? Daily disposable contacts or monthly? What kind of cost am I looking at here?

Should I seek out an optical doctor, or the guys at the optical store?

If anyone could explain the process to me that would be great!

[GoodOnPaper]

Definitely try contacts! After almost 30 years in glasses (3/4 of my life), I switched to contacts last year, and it's the best thing I've ever done for my appearance. If you haven't had an eye exam by an optometrist in the 6 months, get one. You want to know exactly where you are prescription-wise, plus you'll get the best advice regarding soft vs. hard, monthly vs. weekly vs. daily, etc. Sometimes there are prescription issues -- like astigmatism -- that limit your possible choices. Everything else being equal, you probably want to try soft contacts first.

Assuming everything checks out OK, ask for a trial pair to test drive, and the optical store staff will show you how to put in and take out the contacts and give you all the necessary maintenance instructions. Give your eyes a few days to get used to them, then really pay attention to your vision clarity. Particularly with soft contacts, distance vision may not be as razor sharp as with glasses -- I ended up having step up my contacts prescription a notch compared to my glasses.

I wear monthly soft contacts with a bifocal prescription. It took my eyes a few days to get used to them and about a month to really get the mechanics of putting them in and taking them out down. There are occasional minor eye irritations -- as you would probably expect -- but overall, I wish I would have switched over a long time ago. Good luck!