{"id":1017,"date":"2026-11-04T03:34:57","date_gmt":"2026-11-04T03:34:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.visionpros.ca\/pro\/?p=1017"},"modified":"2026-11-04T03:34:59","modified_gmt":"2026-11-04T03:34:59","slug":"are-monthly-or-daily-contact-lenses-more-comfortable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.visionpros.ca\/pro\/are-monthly-or-daily-contact-lenses-more-comfortable\/","title":{"rendered":"Are Monthly or Daily Contact Lenses More Comfortable?"},"content":{"rendered":"<style id=\"vp-callout-fix\">.entry-content .wp-block-quote{background:#f4f8fd;color:#1f2a37;border:1px solid #dbe7f5;border-radius:12px;padding:20px 24px;margin:8px 0 36px;font-size:16.5px;line-height:1.65;box-shadow:0 1px 2px rgba(49,118,180,.06);quotes:none}.entry-content .wp-block-quote::before,.entry-content .wp-block-quote::after{content:none;display:none}.entry-content .wp-block-quote p{color:#1f2a37;margin:0 0 8px}.entry-content .wp-block-quote p:last-child{margin-bottom:0}.entry-content .wp-block-quote strong{color:#1f2a37}.entry-content .wp-block-quote .vp-callout-title{font-weight:600;color:#1a3556}.entry-content .wp-block-quote ul{margin:0;padding:0 0 0 22px;list-style:disc}.entry-content .wp-block-quote li{margin:0 0 8px;padding:0;color:#1f2a37}.entry-content .wp-block-quote li:last-child{margin-bottom:0}.entry-content .wp-block-quote li::marker{color:#3176B4}.entry-content .wp-block-quote a{color:#1d5b93;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:2px}.entry-content figure.wp-block-table{margin:8px 0 36px;border:1px solid #dbe7f5;border-radius:12px;overflow:auto;box-shadow:0 1px 2px rgba(49,118,180,.06);background:#fff}.entry-content figure.wp-block-table table{width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:0;margin:0;font-size:15.5px;line-height:1.5;color:#1f2a37}.entry-content figure.wp-block-table thead th{background:#3176B4;color:#fff;font-weight:600;text-align:left;padding:13px 18px;font-size:14px;letter-spacing:.01em;border:0}.entry-content figure.wp-block-table tbody td{padding:12px 18px;border:0;border-top:1px solid #e6eef8;vertical-align:top;text-align:left}.entry-content figure.wp-block-table tbody tr:nth-child(even) td{background:#f7fafd}.entry-content figure.wp-block-table tbody tr:first-child td{border-top:0}.entry-content figure.wp-block-table tbody td:first-child{font-weight:600;color:#1a3556}.entry-content ol.vp-sources{margin:12px 0 0;padding:0 0 0 24px;list-style:decimal}.entry-content ol.vp-sources li{margin:0 0 10px;padding:0 0 0 4px;font-size:15.5px;line-height:1.55}.entry-content ol.vp-sources a{overflow-wrap:anywhere}<\/style>\n<p>Daily lenses feel better for a lot of people, research shows they don&#8217;t win for everyone.<\/p>\n<p>If your monthlies feel gritty by mid-afternoon, or you&#8217;re picking a first pair and the price difference has you second-guessing, comfort is probably what you&#8217;re really deciding on. It&#8217;s also the main reason people give up on contacts altogether. A Canadian online survey covering 2008 to 2010 (Dumbleton and colleagues, in Eye &amp; Contact Lens) found that about 23% of respondents had quit lens wear for good, and discomfort and dryness led the list of reasons. Your replacement schedule is one of the few comfort levers you can change. How much difference does it really make?<\/p>\n<h2>So, are dailies more comfortable than monthlies?<\/h2>\n<p>On average, yes. The research leans toward dailies, but it doesn&#8217;t back them up every single time.<\/p>\n<p>A 2013 workshop run by the Tear Film &amp; Ocular Surface Society (TFOS) brought together 79 people from around the world to dig into contact lens discomfort. Their summary named daily disposable wear, ahead of reusable wear, among the factors that seem to influence comfort. Two researchers who&#8217;ve tracked contact lens prescribing worldwide since 1996, Nathan Efron and Philip Morgan, went back over the evidence in a 2024 Contact Lens Spectrum article and concluded that dailies are subjectively more comfortable.<\/p>\n<p>Then there&#8217;s the study that complicates the story. Sapkota and colleagues (2018) fit 47 new wearers with a monthly lens in one eye and a daily lens in the other, and followed them for two months. Average comfort, and the dip in comfort toward the end of the day, didn&#8217;t differ between the two eyes. Lens material did show a link to end-of-day comfort.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p class=\"vp-callout-title\">The short version<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Dailies tend to feel better for people who struggle with dryness, allergies or end-of-day grittiness in reusable lenses.<\/li>\n<li>A well-matched monthly lens can feel just as good, especially on healthy eyes.<\/li>\n<li>The specific lens, including its material and fit, can count for as much as the replacement schedule.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n<h2>What a fresh lens each morning takes out of the picture<\/h2>\n<p>A fresh lens every morning takes out most of what can go wrong with a lens you reuse.<\/p>\n<p>Reusables spend the night in solution, sit in a case, and collect tear film components for weeks. Dailies skip all of it. Efron and Morgan point out that corneal staining, redness and eyelid inflammation can come partly from the care products used with reusables, which dailies avoid by design. A review by Walsh and colleagues at the University of Waterloo&#8217;s Centre for Ocular Research &amp; Education also summarizes a 2013 study in which taking the care system out of the picture came with better comfort scores.<\/p>\n<p>Cases are another weak spot. The same review cites surveys finding that 61% to 79% of wearers don&#8217;t clean their case every day. And schedules slip. In the Canadian survey we mentioned at the top, only 45% to 48% of respondents, depending on the group, said they replaced their lenses as recommended.<\/p>\n<p>A caveat: scientists haven&#8217;t pinned down exactly why a fresh lens feels better. The Waterloo review notes that the amount of protein on a lens doesn&#8217;t track neatly with comfort, and a 2025 review by Phan and colleagues calls the link between deposits and discomfort unclear.<\/p>\n<h2>Monthlies still hold their own<\/h2>\n<p>Plenty of people wear monthlies comfortably all day, and eye doctors still fit a lot of them. Across the countries in the international prescribing survey, monthlies made up 42% of daily wear soft lens fits from 2019 to 2023, behind dailies at 47% (Morgan and colleagues, 2024). In Canada dailies are the majority, at 51% of soft lens fits in recent years (Efron and Morgan, 2024), which still leaves nearly half going to reusable lenses.<\/p>\n<p>Efron and Morgan wrapped up their review in favor of dailies, but they said it isn&#8217;t a runaway. Their example of someone who might do better in a reusable lens is a highly astigmatic, cost-conscious, full-time wearer.<\/p>\n<p>Comfort in a monthly can also shift over the month. In a small study run by CooperVision and the Ocular Technology Group, 17 wearers who already felt their lenses wore out early noticed dryness and a drop in comfort about a week before the replacement date. Comfortable wear averaged about 22 days. Phan and colleagues make a similar point: a lens can fade well before its scheduled swap. That doesn&#8217;t mean every monthly slips at week three. You&#8217;re the best judge of how yours holds up.<\/p>\n<h2>Not every daily feels the same, and neither does every monthly<\/h2>\n<p>The lens you&#8217;re wearing can count for as much as the schedule it comes on.<\/p>\n<p>The TFOS panel named a handful of factors that seem to influence comfort: higher water content, low surface friction, avoiding a poor fit, a thin and sharp edge rather than a round one, and wearing modality. It said many other design factors played little role.<\/p>\n<p>Two popular shortcuts don&#8217;t hold up well. The first says silicone hydrogel is automatically more comfortable because it passes more oxygen. The Walsh review points to four evidence reviews that found no overall comfort gain from oxygen alone. The second is the thin-versus-thick debate. Some pages say dailies feel better because they&#8217;re thin, and others say monthlies resist dryness because they&#8217;re sturdy. Neither shows up as a headline finding in the research we read.<\/p>\n<p>Comfort also varies among dailies. In a study by Varikooty and colleagues, 104 adapted wearers tried three silicone hydrogel dailies, and average end-of-day comfort scores ranged from 72 to 79 out of 100. Fit varies too. Wolffsohn and colleagues found that how one lens fit a person didn&#8217;t predict how a different lens with similar specs would.<\/p>\n<p>So if a daily feels worse than your monthly, the lens may be the problem, not the schedule. The reverse can happen too.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p>Before you assume you need a different schedule, ask your eye doctor whether a different material or lens design could help. The Walsh review notes that changing lenses isn&#8217;t the only fix either: the care system, lid health and tear film can all play a part.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h2>What about dry, allergy-prone or sensitive eyes?<\/h2>\n<p>Dailies have the strongest case here, though the lens isn&#8217;t always the whole story.<\/p>\n<p>On dryness, an open-label study followed 85 people who already had dryness symptoms in reusable toric lenses. After two weeks in a daily toric, 77.7% reported little to no dryness, compared with 50.6% in their own reusable lenses (Wan, Mashouf and Hall, 2023). Alcon provided a grant for the work, it wasn&#8217;t randomized or masked, and the authors couldn&#8217;t say whether the schedule, the material or the missing solution deserved the credit. Average scores also stayed just above the symptom cutoff.<\/p>\n<p>Allergies make the clearest case on paper. In a crossover study of 128 allergy sufferers, 67% said one-day lenses improved their comfort, compared with 18% who said a new pair of their usual lenses did (Hayes, Schnider and Veys, 2003). That study tested a single hydrogel daily, and Lyndon Jones of the University of Waterloo noted in 2018 that most wearers were by then in silicone hydrogel lenses, yet no peer-reviewed study had looked at them in allergy sufferers. He wrote that wearers with mild ocular allergy can be told hydrogel dailies may be protective and more comfortable. Severe allergy can rule out lens wear entirely.<\/p>\n<p>If your eyes react to the preservatives in multipurpose solution, dailies skip the solution altogether. The Walsh review adds that a preservative-free hydrogen peroxide system may help reusable wearers with both staining and comfort.<\/p>\n<p>And if dryness is your main complaint, the lens may not be the only culprit. The Walsh review points out that not all dry eye in lens wearers comes from the lens, and it describes trials where treating the eyelids and tear film helped. In one open-label trial, a warm compress used once or twice a day added about 1.8 hours of comfortable wear over four weeks. Bring it up at your next exam.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p>If your eyes turn red, swollen or painful, take your lenses out and see an eye doctor. That goes for any lens type.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h2>Astigmatism, multifocals and strong prescriptions<\/h2>\n<p>This is where monthlies still have a clear edge: more choices.<\/p>\n<p>Efron and Morgan counted 35 daily disposable lens types on the US market, including 16 spherical, eight toric, seven multifocal, two for myopia control and two tinted. Reusable lenses come in more designs, and their power ranges are generally wider. VisionPros carries <a href=\"https:\/\/www.visionpros.ca\/contact-lenses\/toric\/\">toric<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.visionpros.ca\/contact-lenses\/multifocal\/\">multifocal<\/a> lenses in both daily and monthly versions from several makers, plus extended-range monthlies for stronger prescriptions.<\/p>\n<p>Vision counts as much as comfort here. The Walsh review notes that new toric and multifocal wearers are more likely to quit over vision problems than discomfort, and that comfort scores in toric wearers have been linked to how well they see. A lens that feels fine but shifts or blurs won&#8217;t win you over.<\/p>\n<p>If your prescription is on the stronger or more complex side, the right lens is the one that fits and sees well for your eyes, whatever its schedule. Your eye doctor will know what&#8217;s available for your numbers.<\/p>\n<h2>What do dailies cost next to monthlies?<\/h2>\n<p>It comes down to how many days a week you wear them.<\/p>\n<p>Efron and Morgan&#8217;s cost-per-wear model, which counts lenses, solution and professional fees, found that monthlies cost less for full-time wear, meaning five to seven days a week. Dailies came out cheaper for part-time wear, one to four days a week. The reason is simple. A monthly lens gets replaced every 30 days whether you wear it daily or twice a week, so a light schedule leaves you paying for lenses you barely use. The authors built the model more than a decade ago, but they say sample calculations suggest the pattern would look much the same today after allowing for inflation.<\/p>\n<p>Phan and colleagues point out that dailies have become the most common fit in many countries anyway, which suggests cost is no longer a barrier for many wearers.<\/p>\n<p>Prices move, so run the numbers yourself with today&#8217;s prices on the VisionPros <a href=\"https:\/\/www.visionpros.ca\/contact-lenses\/daily\/\">daily<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.visionpros.ca\/contact-lenses\/monthly\/\">monthly<\/a> pages.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p class=\"vp-callout-title\">Quick math<\/p>\n<p>Add up a year of lenses, plus solution and four cases if you&#8217;re pricing monthlies (the CDC says to replace your case at least every three months), then divide by the number of days you wear contacts. Do it for both types and compare.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h2>Small habits that make either type feel better<\/h2>\n<p>A few habits help whichever type you wear, and the first is sticking to the schedule.<\/p>\n<p>Dailies are made for one use. Efron and Morgan cite a study in which 12% of wearers who&#8217;d been given the right instructions still reused them, and they call reuse a significant risk, because daily wearers may not have been trained to clean lenses or may skip the case and solution. Dailies don&#8217;t remove every risk either: in two studies, serious infections weren&#8217;t significantly less common with dailies, though in one of them the infections that did occur were less severe. A monthly lens is a 30-day lens from the day you open it, even if you only wear it a few times.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p class=\"vp-callout-title\">Habits worth keeping<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Replace your case at least every three months, rub and rinse it every day with fresh solution, and never top off old solution (CDC).<\/li>\n<li>Skip water for rinsing or storing lenses (CDC).<\/li>\n<li>Don&#8217;t <a href=\"https:\/\/www.visionpros.ca\/pro\/which-contacts-can-you-sleep-in\/\">sleep in your lenses<\/a> unless your eye doctor has approved it. The Walsh review says even occasional sleeping in lenses raises the risk of a serious infection about tenfold.<\/li>\n<li>Use rewetting drops made for contact lens wearers as a patch, not a fix. Studies find the relief typically lasts under ten minutes. Ask your eye doctor which ones suit your lenses.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Nobody&#8217;s perfect at this. A CDC survey of nearly 1,000 US wearers found that 99% reported at least one habit that raises infection risk. If a few of these sound familiar, tighten them up one at a time.<\/p>\n<h2>Which one should you try first?<\/h2>\n<p>Pick the schedule that fits how you wear contacts, then let your eye doctor confirm the lens.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\">\n<table>\n<thead>\n<tr>\n<th>Factor<\/th>\n<th>Dailies<\/th>\n<th>Monthlies<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td>Lens age<\/td>\n<td>Fresh every morning<\/td>\n<td>Up to 30 days old<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Solution and case<\/td>\n<td>None<\/td>\n<td>Both, with a new case every three months<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Comfort<\/td>\n<td>Tends to win, strongest for dry, allergy-prone eyes<\/td>\n<td>Can match it, especially on healthy eyes<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Astigmatism, multifocals, strong prescriptions<\/td>\n<td>Fewer options<\/td>\n<td>More options<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Cost at 5 to 7 days a week<\/td>\n<td>Higher<\/td>\n<td>Lower<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Cost at 1 to 4 days a week<\/td>\n<td>Lower<\/td>\n<td>Higher<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/figure>\n<p>If you wear contacts a few days a week, deal with allergies, or want grab-and-go simplicity, start with dailies. If you wear them every day, don&#8217;t mind a nightly routine, and have a prescription that dailies cover poorly, monthlies are a solid bet.<\/p>\n<h2>How to switch without guesswork<\/h2>\n<p>In Canada, a contact lens prescription lists a specific lens along with its curve, diameter and power, so a new lens type means a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.visionpros.ca\/pro\/how-to-read-contact-lens-prescription\/\">new prescription<\/a>. That&#8217;s worth respecting, since Wolffsohn&#8217;s finding about fit shows how much lenses with similar specs can differ.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p class=\"vp-callout-title\">Switching checklist<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Ask your eye doctor for trial pairs before you buy a full supply.<\/li>\n<li>Keep in mind that opened boxes usually can&#8217;t go back. At VisionPros, exchanges and refunds apply to unopened, unexpired boxes, and made-to-order lenses, including all CooperVision toric, multifocal and XR lenses, can&#8217;t be returned or exchanged. The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.visionpros.ca\/returns-and-exchanges\/\">returns policy<\/a> has the details.<\/li>\n<li>Wear the new lens for a couple of weeks, including a few long days, before you decide. Then tell your eye doctor how it went.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n<h2>A recommendation<\/h2>\n<p>If comfort is your top priority, dailies are the better first guess, especially for dry, allergy-prone or sensitive eyes. A monthly in a lens that suits you can feel just as good, and it usually costs less if you wear contacts every day.<\/p>\n<p>Either way, the best test is your own eyes on a long day. Ask your eye doctor about trial pairs, and when you&#8217;re ready to order, browse <a href=\"https:\/\/www.visionpros.ca\/contact-lenses\/daily\/\">daily contacts<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.visionpros.ca\/contact-lenses\/monthly\/\">monthly contacts<\/a> at VisionPros.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p class=\"vp-callout-title\">Related reading<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.visionpros.ca\/pro\/are-dailies-contact-lenses-more-expensive-than-monthly-contacts\/\">Are Dailies Contact Lenses More Expensive Than Monthly Contacts?<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.visionpros.ca\/pro\/how-much-are-contact-lenses-in-canada\/\">How Much Are Contact Lenses in Canada?<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.visionpros.ca\/pro\/how-to-get-contact-lenses\/\">How to Get Contact Lenses<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h2>Sources<\/h2>\n<p>Lens makers fund a good share of contact lens research. Where a study we cite had that kind of funding, an open-label design or other limits, we&#8217;ve said so in the text.<\/p>\n<ol class=\"vp-sources\">\n<li>Efron N, Morgan PB. Daily disposables versus reusables: which technology wins? Contact Lens Spectrum, May 2024.<\/li>\n<li>Nichols JJ, Jones L, Nelson JD, et al. Contact lens discomfort: what is it, why does it occur, and how can it be treated? TFOS workshop summary, 2013.<\/li>\n<li>Sapkota K, Franco S, Lira M. Daily versus monthly disposable contact lens: which is better for ocular surface physiology and comfort? Contact Lens &amp; Anterior Eye, 2018.<\/li>\n<li>Dumbleton K, Woods CA, Jones LW, Fonn D. The impact of contemporary contact lenses on contact lens discontinuation. Eye &amp; Contact Lens, 2013.<\/li>\n<li>Walsh K, Jones L, Moody K. Addressing common myths and misconceptions in soft contact lens practice. Clinical and Experimental Optometry, 2022.<\/li>\n<li>Phan CM, Hui A, Shi XC, et al. The impact of comfort eluting agents and replacement frequency on enhancing contact lens performance. Clinical Ophthalmology, 2025.<\/li>\n<li>Morgan PB, Efron N, Woods CA, et al. International trends in daily disposable contact lens prescribing (2000 to 2023): an update. Contact Lens &amp; Anterior Eye, 2024.<\/li>\n<li>Wan K, Mashouf J, Hall B. Comfort after refitting symptomatic habitual reusable toric lens wearers with a new daily disposable contact lens for astigmatism. Clinical Ophthalmology, 2023.<\/li>\n<li>Hayes VY, Schnider CM, Veys J. An evaluation of 1-day disposable contact lens wear in a population of allergy sufferers. Contact Lens &amp; Anterior Eye, 2003.<\/li>\n<li>Jones L. Allergies and contact lenses, 2018.<\/li>\n<li>Varikooty J, Keir N, Richter D, et al. Comfort response of three silicone hydrogel daily disposable contact lenses. Optometry and Vision Science, 2013.<\/li>\n<li>Wolffsohn JS, Hall L, Mroczkowska S, et al. The influence of end of day silicone hydrogel daily disposable contact lens fit on ocular comfort, physiology and lens wettability. Contact Lens &amp; Anterior Eye, 2015.<\/li>\n<li>CooperVision and Ocular Technology Group study of comfort changes during frequent replacement wear, reported by OptiKnow, 2020.<\/li>\n<li>CDC contact lens health leaflet.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.visionpros.ca\/returns-and-exchanges\/\">VisionPros returns and exchanges policy.<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What comfort research says about daily and monthly lenses: who gains most from dailies, when monthlies hold up, what each costs, and how to switch safely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1018,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"semantictags":[],"class_list":["post-1017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buying-guides"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visionpros.ca\/pro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visionpros.ca\/pro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visionpros.ca\/pro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visionpros.ca\/pro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visionpros.ca\/pro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1017"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.visionpros.ca\/pro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1019,"href":"https:\/\/www.visionpros.ca\/pro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1017\/revisions\/1019"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visionpros.ca\/pro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visionpros.ca\/pro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visionpros.ca\/pro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visionpros.ca\/pro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1017"},{"taxonomy":"semantictags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visionpros.ca\/pro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/semantictags?post=1017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}