Two general questions about contact lenses

Since you were all so helpful last week regarding my question about
the way my eyeglass prescription was written, I thought I'd ask about
contact lenses. Two questions:

1) Because of my astigmatism, I need to wear toric lenses, which I've
been doing for awhile. I was interested in trying colored contacts and
the doctor gave me some trials of Freshlook Colorblends (apparently
the only colored toric lens), which I tried but didn't like for a
bunch of reasons. Anyway, I asked about getting a different brand of
colored contacts in a no-power version purely for cosmetic reasons and
was told that to do that I'd need another contact lens fitting
session.

So my question is...why? Assuming the base curve and diameter of the
new brand is the same as the lenses I've been wearing, is another
fitting really neccesary?

2) In line with the above...I just checked the internet to see if I
could buy my clear toric lenses through any of the online retailers.
Apparently, the brand I've been prescribed is made by a company called
Saufron that only sells to eye care professionals. Which means they're
not available through internet retailers and I'm stuck paying whatever
my local eyecare store decides they're worth.

While I'm quite happy with the lenses, I must admit that I'm more than
a little annoyed about not having the option to shop for a better
price. Toric lenses are not inexpensive and I'm not wild about this
feeling that I was fitted with these in an effort to keep my cash
rolling into an particu;ar eyecare store. Advice?

 

is the prescription brand-specific? I thought you could use the
prescription for any brand.

 

A toric lens is surely going to be a hard lens material (otherwise it
would not correct your astigmatism). Therefore i am assuming the lens
material will not be completely gas permeable and therefore the health
of your eye is reliant on a good flow of tears between the contact
lens and the cornea.

Each manufacturers lenses will likely have different curves no matter
what it might seem like from the number on the box.
Toric lenses are not inexpensive and I'm not wild about this

I think you are being a bit overly cynical and a bit cavalier with
your eye health.. If you are requiring a hard lens material the fit
is likely to be that much more critical than for the softer gas
permeable types.

Either way no contact lens can ever create the same healthy conditions
that your eye needs as can an eye with no contact lens placed upon
it. Contact lenses can never be the best healthy choice for the
long term health of your eyes so if you are going to wear then having
the best possible fit makes sense.

A.

 

Hello

I am not a practitioner but I have done research on contact lens
materials.
It is likely that different brands of contact lens will have different
surface
properties (wettability) which means they may interact with your tear
film
differently. So one type of lens could feel more dry than another even
if
they are both soft lenses. This may also affect how they move on the
eye
when blinking. A fitting session will probably check this.

Many people buy contact lenses successfully over the internet but it's
important to make sure you still visit the practitioner for aftercare
checkups. It would therefore probably be best to find another optician
who is happy to provide an aftercare only service. It's a little
awkward
because they probably make most of their money by selling contact
lenses (and glasses) rather than the aftercare so the internet
companies
are doing very well because they don't have to subsidise the
aftercare.
But as I say, many people manage so it must be possible, though
with a different brand of contact lenses.

Did you mean Sauflon (instead of Saufron)? I'm not sure where you
are, but in the UK they supply Tesco's supermarket which may
be a cheaper option now that some of the supermarkets have
their own opticians department.

Richard

 

=================

I suggest that you stick to your own little niche of psychology and
vision, since you know zero about contact lenses.

wrong. there are indeed soft disposable toric contact lenses. that's
what most contact wearers with astigmatism wear and what most are
fitted with.

wrong. there are oxygen-permeable soft toric lenses that are not
dependent upon tear flow to sustain corneal health

and i think you are a bit cavalier about offering advise to someone
about a subject that you have no knowledge of. why do you come to
this forum and start serving up advise about contact lenses?

 

no. contact lenses from one manufacturer are not equivalent to
contacts offered by another. the plastic is different. the edge
design is different. the thickness is different, etc.

 

Also, one may deform easier than another when blinking
due to different mechanical properties.

Richard

 

Excuse me, in that case :
It is different, but I do not think that her OD think the same.
He prescribed not the best or more comfortable for her.
He prescribed the brand which he sells.

Lena

 

No some rigid materials more permeable than soft.
Hint is even in the name RGP is a Rigid Gas Permeable

Lena

 

No
They try to make it look like brand-specific

Just letting you know

As a rule they are not so particular in prescriptions about
design :edges and so on
Example : bausch&lomb multifocal it is the "One size fits all" (One
base curve and radius)
Main statement "You will use to it"

Lena

 

about a subject that you have no knowledge of. why do you come to
this forum and start serving up advise about contact lenses?

Since the poster felt he was being ripped off by what he was told it
makes some sense for a lay person to say from a common sense point of
view that he was not likely to be doing the best thing by being so
cavalier with his eyes by attempting to find lenses from other sources
and where there was no fitting service provided.

And even if my technical guesses were wrong no gas permeable lense can
ever be as good as no contact lens and there must be risks associated
with the use of contact lenses which are hard to quantify for any
given wearer.

I assume you and Mike are not disagreeing with these points?

 

==============

Hello Blasterbot. I will try to help with your questions.

if you have been fitted in a different lens than Freshlook, and the
eye doc has not seen you wearing Freshlook before, then he must
examine you with the Freshlook lenses in your eyes in order to be sure
that they fit properly. so in most cases when you ask for a
prescription for another type of contact it truly does mean that the
eye doc will need to schedule for another follow-up and in some
offices that could mean that it might cost you more $$. however, in
this specific case, if your eye doc has already seen you wearing
Freshlook Toric lenses then he already knows if they fit properly or
not since in fact their specifications are exactly the same as
Freshlook colors (same plastic, diameter, base curve, edge design,
etc.). so in my practice I would automatically approve your request
for Freshlook colored lenses based upon my evaluation with the toric
lenses earlier.

I understand your annoyance. this is an old trick that a lot of eye
docs still try to pull in order to make additional profits by being
the sole source of the contacts that they fit you in. I am afraid
there isn't much you can do about it now. Just learn a lesson-- the
next time you get fitted in contacts tell the eye doc that you want to
wear a brand of lens that is commonly available from a variety of
sources-- not just his/her office. You might actually make a short
list of lenses that you can get online and then present that list to
your doctor and ask him/her to consider those lenses, if appropriate
for your eye health, before considering others. I do not sell any
contacts in my practice so I am free to prescribe whatever I think is
best for the patient or whatever the patient prefers-- assuming that I
agree that the lens is not harmful to the patient.

 

Hello,

PClar, I don't understand.

Are you saying that eye doctors directly profit from selling contact
lenses? I thought they have a fixed salary? And I thought that the
money which they gain from selling contact lens products all go to the
actual company?

I just don't see what incentive there would be for the eye docs to
want to decieve their patients into buying their products.

Or do they profit indirectly?; i.e the more they sell the higher
reputation they get and the higher reputation means higher chances of
promotion or salary upgrade from their boss? Please please could you
explain it.

 

Sauflon is an old custom manufacturer of contact lenses. Many toric
lenses are still custom made and are not available in disposable
format. In your case, going to a mass produced lens may or may not
provide the same comfort or clarity. Just because Walmart does not
sell them doesn't mean that your eye doctor has done anything wrong.
Your doctor just may have had good luck using that product. It's like
buying shoes.

 

Yoops!
If it is custom made , sorry, disregard all my posts about "sales".and
"wrong"

Lena

 

No, actually toric lens are usually soft contacts. They are aspherical
and have to have a certain orientation. RGPs for astigmatism are
usually spherical.

Actually, RGP (rigid gas permeables) breathe better than soft lenses.
That seems counterintuitive, but that's the fact.

 

That's perhaps too broad a generalization. It depends on a number of
things, such as lens diameter, DK, thickness, etc. Soft lenses like
Focus Night and Day are difficult to beat in terms of oxygen
permeability.

 

Actually, the trials I got were for the straight Colorblends, not the
toric version. I think the idea was that I was supposed to pick a
color first. Unfortunately, I didn't like any of them.

My point is that colored contact lenses don't seem to come in a myriad
of base curves and diameters. Freshlook Colorblends come in exactly
one size. Acuvue 2 Color (the brand I wanted to try) comes in 2 base
curves but only one diameter. Given that, I'd assume that the fits on
these things for most people is reasonably close but not optimal. If
that's the case, I'm not really seeing the point of another fitting.

Why should I need to pay twice? I've already done a contact lens
fitting. Assuming we now know what size and power toric lens is
perfect for me, what difference does it make who the manufacturer is
or where I choose to purchase them?

Reading the responses here, I'm starting to wonder if I was fitted
with the Sauflon contacts because they were best for me or out of some
crass profit motive. And that REALLY bothers me.

 

These are two week disposable soft lenses. They come 6 to a box and
cost roughly $50 per box. The doctor had the trials right there for me
to try the day I was examined. One was slightly off and he needed to
order a slightly different power. It was there waiting for me the
Tuesday after the Saturday I was examined. So I'm rather doubting that
these lenses are custom-made. And Sauflons's website touts the fact
that their products force patients to keep coming back to the eyecare
store since they're not available anywhere else.

I probably should count my blessings. The first eye doctor I saw
(which sent me running to find a new one) told me with a straight face
that all toric lenses were custom-made and cost $250 a box, and then
proceeded to practically insist that I buy them right then and there.
I didn't know enough about the subject at that time to actually
suspect that she wasn't being entirely honest, but something about her
hard sell approach made me nervous.