Originally uploaded by
mikko.
I've been wearing soft contact lenses since about 1978. I tend to wear them when I go skiing or traipsing in the sun, when I want to wear my cheap, non-prescription sunglasses. I'd say I probably wear contacts about 75 days per year.
I prefer to store the lenses in a disinfectant solution with a metal disk in the container to neutralise it. A close inspection of the expensive disinfecting solutions reveals them to be nothing more than buffered hydrogen peroxide. Instead, I have long bought standard brown-bottle hydrogen peroxide and mix it with generic normal saline. At about a tenth of the "system" cost. This was my first inkling that consumers were being ripped off.
The prescribed instructions always recommend cleaning before disinfecting storage. I've never done this. I've stored then cleaned before insertion. Most cleaning solutions are hopeless, but in the late 1980s I switched to a strong, alcohol-based solution branded as MiraFlow which has worked well. But it would take a lot of saline to rinse it clear. Given that we live in a country with clean town water, I just rinse under the tap and then apply a bit of saline (which simulates the slipperiness of tears) before insertion. So I buy even less saline.
In thirty years I have never had an eye infection or even a sty.
My current lenses were purchased in 2000. Obviously, they are non-disposable. They are also toric, which means they are of advanced design to correct for
astigmatism. Back then they cost me about $120 for the pair, a good investment. Only in the past year have I noticed that they are drying out more quickly by the end of the day, so it's time to update them.
I returned to the optician I went to before.
What a shock. She won't sell me anything but disposables. She gave me the impression that that is all that is available. Home now and online, I can see that the market is certainly dominated by disposables, but there are still a few non-disposable torics available. What it comes down to is that the optical dispensing industry has transformed the contact lens market into a loyalty programme. You get fitted into a particular brand, then you return every 3 or 6 months to get your eyes re-checked and another prescription. This guarantees that the optician keeps earning revenue from both you and your health cover provider, and so does the supplier. That just makes me feel so nice and warm inside.
Lens manufacturers were caught out a few years ago for selling the identical lens as distinct daily, weekly and monthly disposable products, at different price points. A successful class-action suit in USA
against Bausch and Lomb culminated in fines of several millions of dollars in the mid 1990s, yet in the UK in 2005
similar allegations were still being made. One can still read discussion forum posts of contact lens wearers claiming to clean and re-use the disposables up to ten times their recommended life.
But then see the opticians' lobby climb aboard and say "oh no, there will be infection, you'll lose your eyes!" Sorry, I don't buy it. Eyes are tough. The opticians' lobby uses fear to manipulate us into being compliant to their profit-taking agenda. As I
posted before, I am not inclined to help them pay their "high-street" rents. And I don't accept their imperious decree to
ban contact lens sales via the Internet, either, especially when they are sold in boxes of a hundred and twenty disposables.
The fact is, they don't make contact lenses like they used to. The disposable lenses are not meant to be repeatedly rubbed with cleaner. They wear out quickly. They are designed to. It's just one scam after another.
So I'll still endeavour to find another set of non-disposables and remain free of them for another decade.
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