I am out of contact lenses. I am on my last pair and they need to be tossed. Prior to now, I’ve bought them from my optometrist.  I don’t wear contacts all the time because I find my eyes start feel really dry after a long time and I don’t always feel comfortable wearing lenses many days in a row. I currently wear “Acuvue Oasys”, which are supposed to be really moisturizing and for extended wear.  But, even though they’re moisturizing they bug me after a couple of wearings and I feel like I’d love to change them even though they haven’t reached their useful life. I definitely don’t wear my lenses longer than the month they’re designed for, in fact I often wear them less than 30 times.
Recently I heard about a new lens “Acuvue 1 Day Moist”.  It sounds like a good option for me. Last time I was at my optometrist’s she didn’t want to put me in any one-day lenses because they weren’t going to be as moist as the ones I have. So, I left it and bought the kind I’ve had since I started going to this optometrist.  The first time I came to this optometrist I found out about their ‘care plan’ — $50/year and you can get fitted for contacts as often as you want and you get a discount on your lenses. So I signed up for it. The trouble? I’ve been wearing contacts for years and I’ve tried most of them – except one day disposables.  So I got the Oasys and that was it – there were no other options for me to test.  So I continued wearing mostly glasses and infrequently my contacts, and the lens discount didn’t even begin to make the $50 worth it – especially as I got the Oasys at my regular check up and didn’t need any special fitting.
So, needless to say, I didn’t renew the care plan.  However, as I mentioned, I heard that there are these one day moist lenses.  So I wanted to try them. I printed out a coupon from the Acuvue website and went to my optometrist’s office to see if I could get a trial pair.  They wouldn’t dispense them. Even though the base curve was pretty close (8.5 versus 8.4) and it’s the same manufacturer.  They wanted me to spend $50 again to get them. But knowing my use of my current lenses, and the discount for the lenses at the optometrists it was a terrible deal.  For that $50 I might as well just buy a set and if I like how they feel, switch, and if not, just order the kind I’ve always had.  It’s incredibly stupid, why on earth would I spend that much money to get contacts when I can order then online and try them myself – after all one trial pair of a one day disposable lens isn’t enough to really decide – I usually wear a trial pair (of the kinds other than the one-day disposables) at least 10-14 times before I am certain I’m happy with them.
What’s their argument? That they need to ensure that the lenses fit properly, but when they’re the almost same measurements (within 0.1 BC) that argument doesn’t wash with me! Maybe if I’d never worn lenses before, but not right now, not when it’s just one type of lens that I want to try that didn’t exist last time I had my eyes tested.
How incredibly frustrating So, on Monday, I’ll order boxes of these lenses and see what I think. Just in time, too, as I am at the end of the useful life of my current pair.