Buying contact lenses (Disposable Contact Lenses in General)

Name: olly374

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Product:	Disposable Contact Lenses in General
Date:	12/05/06 (3278 review reads)
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Advantages: Buying in a shop means you get aftercare and glasses discounts

Disadvantages: Disposables are more expensive than RPGs however buying online means you get cheaper lenses

Brief Background
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I've been wearing glasses since 10 for short sightedness, and started wearing contact lenses 10 years ago when I needed to wear glasses all the time. I originally wore Rigid Gas Permeable lenses because I have astigmatism (Eyeball shaped like a rugby ball rather than a football), and soft disposable lenses where out of my price range as being a contact lense wearer means you have to have at least one decent pair of glasses as well. Then about 4 years later when the price of toric soft lenses had dropped I start wearing monthly disposable lenses so in all I have been wearing soft lenses for about 6 years.


Rigid Gas Permeable Lenses v. Soft Monthly Disposables
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The real reason why I changed contact lenses is because of the sports I took up meant I risked damaged to my eyes if a racket or person hit me in the eye, and my Rigid Gas Permeable (RGP) contact lenses shattered in my eye. Also by the time I could afford to change my prescription had stablised.

There is some evidence in the US that wearers of RGP lenses are less likely to have increased short sightness during their teenaged years when their body is growing. If you ask a UK optician many of them don't know about this research.

Rigid Gas Permeable Lenses allow oxygen to your eyes and can be worn for a longer time period per day and 7 days a week if you wish, there as monthly soft lenses should only be worn 6 days a week. The time period they can be worn for depends on the water content of the lense. Most monthly disposables are not suppose to be worn for more than 8 or 12 hours at a time however you can get lenses that you can wear for 14 or 16 hours however these are more likely to rip. My lenses are a 14 hour and a 16 hour lense and the 16 hour lense doesn't always last a month.

RGP are suppose to be hard to get use to. However I had no problems getting use to RGP or soft lenses.

I found that buying RGP costed me about £109-£120 every two years plus the cost of cleaning solutions and a yearly eye examination. I got my RGPs from a contact lense shop in Camden where one of my siblings got their lenses from first. Soft lenses originally cost me £240 a year with cleaning solutions and aftercare, however as I should point out later I ended up with too much cleaning solution. Therefore RGP are actually cheaper after the first year.

Buying lenses from shops
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I originally brought my soft lenses from an optician on a monthly payment scheme. On the scheme I would get an contact lense eye check every year, a monthly supply of contact lenses and solutions.

The contact lense eye check is different from a normal eye check as not only do they test your sight they check the condition of your eyes with and without your contact lenses in, whether your contact lenses fit your eyes, and ask you questions about your cleaning and the replacement of your lenses. This you should have every 12 months.

Under opticians monthly payment schemes you are allowed to have another check free if you feel that the contact lenses prescribed for you are causing you problems or you have an eye infection.

Also on the scheme as I stated you get your monthly supply of contact lenses and solutions. These can be sent out by post or you can go into the store and pick them up. If you have a postman like mine who dumps parcels on your doorstep whatever the weather or decides that thin parcels won't fit through your letter box, then you should go into the store and pick up your monthly supplies. (I should point out that over the past 3 years the postman changes at least every month.) Normally there is not a problem with this however the optician I joint had a manager who decided it wasn't his priority to get customers lenses in, so myself and a friend ended up with no contact lenses for 1 month and 3 months respectively. For this we were compensated with extra free lenses and solutions. I got 3 months and my friend got 9 months. Due to the many complaints from customers this manager was eventually removed from his position.

Last year I decided to change opticians as I was fed up of not being able to find discounted glasses from the store that suited me. However the new optician I chose decided it was not worth having me as a customer as they couldn't put my bank details into their system so I decided to buy my contact lenses online.

Buying contact lenses online
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Armed with my prescription I using an internet search engine and put in the search term "contact lenses UK" and came across several different websites.

After looking at a number of them I decided to use this criteria to buy my lenses:
1. Whether the toric lenses they had fitted my prescription.
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Due to my prescription I was limited by the number of websites I could buy from. I also discovered that although one or two websites had my brand of lenses in they didn't have the correct cylinder.

2. Whether I could choose two different types of lenses
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I need a toric lense in one eye and a normal lense for the other. Some websites made it very difficult to choose different lenses for each eye and therefore you have to email the supplier for details.

3. Price
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I discovered that the difference in price between the most expensive and the cheapest websites where £15 for my prescription. This is due to a lot of things such as location for example Focus daily disposables are made in Holland so websites based there are cheaper. My own prescription is cheaper from a German based or a Jersey based company. The more lenses you order the cheaper the price gets so if you order 6 months or 12 months supply the price decreases. If the company is well known i.e. a supermarket the lenses cost more. If you wear daily disposables, daysoft.co.uk is a cheaper UK based unknown supplier.

4. Delivery
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Some suppliers claimed that as toric lenses are specially made it would take them about 14 days extra to deliver them. Also some suppliers did not give you the option of signed for or courier delivery. This means that if you had a postman who dumped things on your doorstep you cannot guarantee that you get the lenses. Plus if you are buying from abroad you need to ensure your supplier is in the EU otherwise you will pay extra duty and delivery on your lenses.

Advantages of buying contact lenses through a shop
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1. Aftercare
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If you suffer from problems with your eyes i.e. get frequent eye infections then buying from a shop is cheaper and safer. If you are already a customer of the optician chain they cannot refuse to see you.
2. Obtaining the lenses
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You have a choice of going into the shop and getting your lenses in person and don't have to worry about the whims of the postman.
3. Solutions
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If you use monthly disposables with solutions they are normally included in the monthly price of your package.
4. Discounts
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You normally get discounts on glasses from the store.

Disadvantages of buying contact lenses through a shop
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1. Expense
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If you only have a check every 12 months and don't use the glasses discounts then you are paying more money then you need for your lenses and aftercare. I rarely was able to find glasses that fitted my face and suited my face from the stock in the shop.

2. Obtaining the lenses
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If you end up with a manager who doesn't do his job you then end up for months without lenses you paid for in advance. Contact lenses by post schemes are suppose to eliminate this but I have been in opticians and overheard the staff phone customers and inform them that their contact lenses have been delivered to the store by mistake.

3. Solutions
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I ended up with over a years supply of contact lense solutions due to the size of the bottles. Each opened bottle can be used for 3 months however you are given a bottle a month. I found even with using lots of the solution the minimum a bottle 360ml would last would be 6 weeks and the maximum would be 2 months. I ended up giving the solution bottles away to friends' and then eventually using the solution for a year afterwards when I brought my contact lenses on-line.

4. Re-branding of lenses
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Some optician chains re-brand manufacturers lenses so you don't know what you are buying.


Advantages of buying contact lenses on-line
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1. Expense
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The lenses are cheaper if you shop around as you are not paying for store overheads. You may think this is wrong but you still need to buy glasses and glasses are not cheap.

2. Obtaining the lenses
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You can buy the lense for any supplier you like and get buy up to a years supplier at a time. I wouldn't recommend this if it is the first time you are using a company unless they are recommended by someone you know.

Disadvantages of buying contact lenses on-line
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1. Aftercare
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You are responsible for getting a check up every year. If you don't have an up to date prescription the suppliers are not allowed to supply you with lenses. Some of them check up on you by asking the name and address of your optician or for you to fax a copy of your prescription, and then ring the optician while others do not. If you have an eye infection or problems with your lenses YOU have to sort out finding an optician to look at your eyes. Plus some shop opticians are now trying to trick people into signing up for their direct debit schemes where the contract is 12 months, breaking the the law by refusing to give them a copy of their prescription or a valid prescription i.e. no signature (I've had this in the past with glasses which is odd as I normally buy the glasses from the store I have my test in) or ensure that a contact lense only check up costs you more money.

2. Solutions
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You have to buy solutions separately. Online retailers solution prices don't seem that much cheaper than buying solutions from a high street optician, supermarket or chemist.

3. Delivery
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You are at the whims of the supplier, so if they can run out of your lense you have to wait longer. Also you may have problems with delivery via the post office or delivery company. Normally delivery is not included unless you spend a certain amount. Stand delivery charges vary from £2 to £4 depending on the location of the supplier.

4. Special prescriptions
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If you have a prescription that is deemed special you will find it difficult to find lenses that match your prescription online and they may not be cheaper. My lense prescription is not special as the two opticians I have used had my lenses in stock when I had contact lense trials.

5. Contacting the supplier
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Most suppliers can only be contacted by email. Some can be contacted by phone as well. This means it will take longer for them to answer queries like what manufacturer brand are your optician re-branded contact lenses.

Conclusion
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If you are a happy disposable soft contact lense wearer for over a year with no history of eye problems then buying online will save you money. However you need to be proactive in sorting out your aftercare and avoiding opticians tricks.

Summary: Only buy online if you have no problems with your eyes and are proactive in getting aftercare