Great safety program for soft contact lens wearers

When the "fusarium scare" occurred and Bausch and Lomb "Renu with
Moisture Lock" was pulled off the market, B&L was put in a similar
place that the makers of Tylenol were after the great poisoning scare
years back. To build patient compliance and advocate good contact lens
hygiene B&L has created a FREE "Wear & Care" consumer program. When
you go on their website at www.bausch.com and hit the "Wear and Care"
button, you can sign up for a FREE care package that includes 12 free
contact lens cases to encourage monthly case disposal. YOU DON"T HAVE
TO WEAR B&L LENSES to get the free cases. My rep says they have had
80,000 sign up so far, and the more the merrier. So, I encourage
everyone here who wears soft contacts or fits soft contacts to send
everyone to this program.
When cases are clean and hands are clean there are fewer infections and
we all win, not just B&L.

 

Just wondering here, but are RGP wearers affected by this also?

 

Thanks for that post!

I have just one comment about it. B&L would like people to believe
that the problems with their eyedrops were actually the fault of poor
patient hygiene. A dozen contact lens cases is a bit silly. It pains
me to see a myopic patient wearing glasses. They should be wearing
contact lenses - rigid if they can tolerate them - and consider LASIK
when they can pay for it. Actually.. anybody can pay for it. When
the numbers are crunched, it takes at most 12 years of contact lens or
glasses to equal the cost of LASIK. Also, Lasik is tax deductable -
as are glasses and contacts - but people are not likely to go to the
trouble of deducting their contacts or glasses.. but are likely to
deduct that big lasik payment. The operation is easily financed.

I would like everyone to be wearing rigid contacts if possible. They
are very low maintenance, and provide the best possible vision. It's
unfortunate that so few people are willing to put up with a little
discomfort.

 

Are you an eye doc?

 

Thanks for the update. I'm surprised that B&L did not do a press
release on this. We normally get their releases and I had not heard
about this excellent service.

We have added it to our RSS NewsFeed and it is now on our website.

Glenn Hagele
Executive Director
USAEyes.org
Patient Advocacy Surgeon Certification

"Consider and Choose With Confidence"

Email to glenn dot hagele at usaeyes dot org

http://www.USAEyes.org
http://www.ComplicatedEyes.org

I am not a doctor.

 

I don't know why you replied anonymously... you did a good post.

I had not seen the full story about B&L and that solution. Scary
stuff. Which is yet another reason to avoid soft contact lenses.
Rigid lenses can be rinsed off with warm tap water. Those lenses to
not absorb water nor does water adhere to them. Still, one might want
to give them a squirt with some contact lens solution after
thouroughly cleaning them with tap water.

Another issue is that preserved solutions are not healthy for the
eye... yet no preservatives is even more dangerous... so again.. go
for the RGPs

 

I tend to agree with you.... there are many issues involved in
solutions... preservatives vs non-preserved... for instance...
distilled water is not chlorinated.. so distilled water is potentially
a medium for bacteria soup.
And I promise tnot to make a big issure out of this.. even though I
probably should.. but this is a good reason to have LASIK... to be
free of sticking solutions into your eyes. Don't get me started on
the old pretien eating pig pancreatin tablets....

 

You generalise too much. LASIK isn't good for all. It wouldn't be
good for me as I am monocular. Too risky.

Ann

 

That's for sure. LASIK is inherently riskier than any contact lens.

DrG

 

Dr. Leukoma wrote:


.. LASIK is inherently riskier than any contact lens.

Sounds like a true contact salesman. "Can't have anyone cutting a
slice in my pie."

 

Watched you for quite some time. I'd say your "agenda" is far more at
play here than that of Dr. G.

But then, that's must my impression .... based in part on decades of
research and review of peer-reviewed studies.

 

My agenda is only to counter the anti- RS loony fringe. And since my
SE days of long ago I've noticed that Leukoma's agenda is to stroke his
own ego and play the part of a super hero. Anyone can fit a lens or say
which is better, 1 or 2 ?

 

I love this perspective. I'll go out on a limb and assume you're a
blood relative of Otis Brown, right?

Airline pilots have the easiest job in the world ... about 98% of the
time. During the other 2% of the time, though, you are praying for
their expertise, their judgment, their acumen, and their experience to
all coalesce to pull your bacon out of the fire.

I don't doubt that some big % (dramatically UNDER 98%, I would guess)
of an OD's practice is NOT particularly challenging to them either,
but that just keeps the lights on AND isn't of their making.

Their scope of practice matches up with certain optometric problems in
the general population in a certain way. It is what it is.

LOTS of OD's (I've known quite a few), however, "get out of bed" for
the remainder of their patients--those whose cases are more complex,
more challenging, and, therefore, more rewarding.

Whatever your profession, I'm sure I could take equally prejudicial
and unenlightened pot-shots at it and at you. I wouldn't, but just
know that it could easily be done. You've only been on one side of
the chair, I presume.

 

If you think that Leukoma (example only in this case) does not have
a financial incentive then maybe you should buy a tin foil hat.
Thanks, but I'll decide how to think, I don't need you to do it for me.

 

Ace, of course, could perform PRK.

DrG

 

God forbid !!!!!!!!!!! All right, ya got me there. I left the
gate wide open for that one.

 

That is completely false. You have no business practicing as a doctor
and putting forth such blatant false nonsense. You should be ashamed
of yourself.

I might add one thing to this. LASIK is the most performed surgery of
all time.. and the only surgery that has never had a fatality.
HOWEVER, I know of a case where an irresponsible optometrist gave a
post-lasik patient some gloom and doom scenario to scare the patient -
and the patient wound up committing suicide. That optometrist should
have been charged with manslaughter and malpractice. The name of
that optometrist slips my mind at the moment.

 

What's the name of that game... DOOM? Where there
has been a leak at the nuclear plant and these mutants
keep coming at you, each one mutated in a different way?

I thought that was lancing boils. "lancing", not "lasik".

-Quick

 

Ragnar is correct that B&L would like people to believe that the
problems with their lens cleaning solutions is only the fault of poor
patient hygiene. However the contact lens industry has long been well
aware that patient compliance with manufacturers regimens is poor and
thatthe prescribed multipurpose lens care solutions have failed to
prevent approximately 25,000 annual cases of microbial keratitis plus
hundreds of thousands of cases of CLARE.There has been inadequate
warning of the risks to users of contact lenses.