No, I'm not flirting, I'm blinking my lenses back into place... (Gas Permeable Lenses in General)

Member Name: EdibleDormouse

Product:	Gas Permeable Lenses in General
Date:	18/10/08 (915 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Clear peripheral vision, good eye health

Disadvantages: Require perseverance to get used to

When I was 13, I changed schools.

This is significant in terms of this review, because it marks the point, nearly 27 years ago, when I became a contact lens wearer. My bargaining tools, for parent manipulation, were a) I'm responsible, b) I have a Saturday job and a paper round, so can pay for them myself, and c) it'll be cheaper than replacing every broken pair of specs I present you with.

So I started with gas permeable lenses then, changed to soft at the age of 18, and basically abused my eyes from that point forward until around 25 or so. A check up at 30 revealed "moderate" neovascularisation, and my lens wearing was chopped to no more than six hours at a time, no more than twice a week.

Fast forward 10 years, and at a lens check (for I still kept them up, regular as clockwork) at a new optician, having recently moved, the lens practitioner said "you know, if you had gas permeable lenses, you could go back to full time wear". I related teenage tales of unbearable irritation, three different solutions, weekly protein remover tablets, poor vision (only vanity stopped me giving up altogether...), and said that I didn't think it was for me. He reassured me that technology had moved forward, especially in terms of solutions, and that it was worth a go, especially as my job frequently requires glasses-free good vision. Something I don't naturally have. In fact, my visual accuity is such that I couldn't hit a cow's backside with a banjo without considerable optical assistance.

So I was persuaded, and five months on, I'm impressed. The entire package of lenses and solutions from Specsavers cost me £110 (I have a slightly unusual prescription, so this may come out cheaper for most people), and I've only had one episode of acute irritation which involved me attempting to get the lens out of a streaming eye in the queue in Matalan. Classy.

I've opted for the Boots standard gas permeable solutions over the Specsavers (exactly the same ingredients in the same quantities) as they're slightly cheaper, and I can earn points on them as well, thereby effectively making about one in every four or five purchases a freebie.

One thing I do find is that I need copious quantities of saline to rinse the cleaning solution off (the comfort solution isn't an effective enough rinsing agent), and even though I was told "nobody uses protein remover tablets these days", I do find that I need to use them at least once a fortnight to keep my lenses really comfortable, although it has been suggested on a lens forum that this is entirely down to "my age"...nice.

In short, give it a go, and keep up your aftercare. In my opinion, you do need to be more stringently clean with GP lenses, but they do what it says on the tin, and your eyes can breathe. An absolute must if you would rather not wear glasses. You may also (as I have) end up with a condition called "spectacle blur" when wearing glasses after having had your lenses in for an extended period, which I can only describe as similar to a night out on the Toilet Duck only with the sure and certain knowledge that you won't have a headache in the morning. Nothing, apparently, can be done for this, and you have about a one in 10 chance of it happening. Annoying, but harmless.

And that neovascularisation?

All gone.

Summary: A good option for older or long term lens wearers