Contact lenses - niche one

[PoachesPeaches]

Probably a bit niche. I wear gas permeable contact lenses and wear them for around 16 hours a day.

I've owned my current pair for maybe four or five years. Apparently they are meant to last one year. Usually I will either lose or break one if I drop it and it forms a suction that I can't remove without cracking it.

I clean them in the morning, with the correct cleaner, never at night, and overnight I just put them in saline not conditioning solution.

The reasons for keeping them so long and using saline is its all so fiendishly expensive. Gas permeables are about £120 each I think. Saline is £2 a bottle rather than £5+ for conditioning.

My eyes are fine, there is a slight redness under the bottom rim which the optician mentioned and gave me drops for which I didn't really use much as you can't wear contact lenses with the drops.

My prescription is very high and I don't like my current glasses. They are also too small, they do not fit over my ears! have a wierd shape head where my eyes are quite close but my head is wide. Bigger frames look too big and smaller frames don't fit my head well. Due to the prescription strength some opticians will be really restrictive in what they think will work i.e. fit the lens, so choice is limited. This means I never end up with a frame I love and want to wear, but I just need to make a decision and buy a next pair and make them a pair I will wear a little more.

How bad is the way I take care of my eyes long term? I sort of think there is no long term issue so I don't change it, and it's been a habit for 30 years so to change it will require a kick up my butt.

Is there a specific reason your wearing gas permeable? Have you tried soft lenses? When you say your prescription is high, how high?

I don't think the length of time is an issue unless the lens starts to degrade. I definitely had some of mine for longer than a year. I wouldn't have dared not follow the instructions so can't help you on the conditioning/saline question. I never used saline, bought multipacks of conditioning solution and shopped around for offers. I accepted it as part of the cost of lenses.
I don't wear hard lenses any more though, I've switched to soft.

Any reason why you haven't tried /swapped to soft lenses

I have daily ones so no cleaning

I think you’ll get away with it until you don’t IYSWIM. I had poor contact lense hygenie and got away with it for years in my youth until I got an ulcer and came close to losing my eye altogether.

I don’t know anything about gas permeable lenses but I think you should have an honest discussion with your optician. How high is your prescription?

I've got a very high prescription and I used to wear gas permeable contact lenses. I was told no more than 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. Despite not really going much above that, my eyes went dry after 17 years of gas permeables and I had to stop wearing them althogether. It happened quite suddenly, over just a few weeks.

I now have soft daily lenses with glasses over the top. Means I can have nice glasses though, not thick ones!

You might be fine, but your eyes might make the decision for you in the end. I couldn't wear contacts at all for about 3 months while my eyes recovered which was crap as I don't like my full prescription glasses either.

I used to have each pair of gas permeables for a few years though, no one ever tried to make me replace them yearly. I used protein remover tablets every couple of months as well as the daily cleaning regime.

Soft lenses are much easier. I have ones I can wear overnight occasionally so they let in more oxygen. I throw them away every month. As they are soft the don’t suction hard enough to break. I am -7.5 so have a strong prescription. I am fastidious about washing my hands before going anywhere near them, not wearing in the shower, using a fresh pair and fresh case monthly, letting my case air dry…

Ate you able to try them?

Presumably you’re having your eyes looked at yearly by the optician? If that’s all fine, I can’t see an issue.

I wear daily lenses and they are really inexpensive (£24 a month) and no cleaning!

Putting dirty lenses in saline overnight is a high risk strategy IMO, saline does not have any preservatives, cleansing agents, wetting agents etc, it loses its sterility as soon as you open the bottle and bacteria could be multiplying in there, getting onto the case etc. You may not be removing them all by cleaning in the morning. I hope you are letting the case dry completely every day.

I find it odd that your optician is not advising you on whether the lenses are too old at 4 or 5 years or the incompatibility of the drops. I used to keep my GPs for 2 or 3 years IIRC (switched to soft 20 years ago after 20 years of GPs). I have similar issues to you with glasses, really strong prescription (-12) which massively restricts frame choice and fit, so totally get the urge to wear contacts if at all possible but I think you need to revisit the saline habit and get advice from the optician re the condition of your current lenses, maybe switch to soft and order online plus bulk solution to cut costs.

You need to use proper cleaning solution @PoachesPeaches

I used to wear gas permeable but I now use monthly disposables via a £15 per month scheme with Specsavers. That includes the lenses, pots and cleaning solution, as well as regular contact lens checks and sight tests. They're so much more comfortable that GP, but even then I take mine out when I get home from work.

Contact Lens Optician here. You definitely need to use a proper cleaning and wetting solutions. You are asking for trouble with just using saline. I tell my patients it's like washing up without a bit of fairy liquid.
Unless you have very specialist lenses a standard spherical lens (up to + or - 20) is about £50 -75 each at specsavers and toric lenses about £75-100 each.
Lenses if well looked after can last a good few years but can easily get scratched or deposited without proper care.
Well fitted RGP lenses should happily give 16 hours of wear 7 days a week as long as your eyes are in good condition. The fact you are getting redness means they are not doing well anymore. Get yourself to the opticians and get a check up and a new pair.
It is a bit of an outlay as you pay all in one go but they routinely last 2-3 years so even if buying proper solution they are more economical than soft.

Thank you I appreciate the reply.

I think I may try Specsavers for another pair. I used to go to a local place but got my last pair from Specsavers - I don't know how but I cracked one of them within a week! Maybe this was just bad luck. I think I have a tiny astigmatism.

As per your advice I will try the proper solutions and see if I can buy bulk for cheaper.

Yes the reason I chose gas permeable all those years ago was because they allow greater oxygen to the eye and that was important back then as I sometimes did a 12 hour shift.

Thanks again, appreciate you taking the time to reply. For some reason written down advice sticks with me over verbal advice!

Just over minus 10 in both eyes.

Yes I think if I'd just had the same attitude I wouldn't have switched to saline! I think it was a case of running out of solution at some point, trying saline and then thinking oh this is fine. And here I am years later!

❤️ I am so glad you didn't lose an eye. To he honest this is the kind of information I need to hear so thank you for sharing.

I take a drug that lowers my immune system and sometimes I am so tired I have fallen asleep with them in. Its basically a terrible recipe so I am sorting this out asap!

Oh. My. Goodness. This. Could be a game changer.

I now have soft daily lenses with glasses over the top. Means I can have nice glasses though, not thick ones!

Please tell me more about this. What happens to your depth perception? I find with glasses my feet look smaller. But with contacts my feet look, I presume normal size. This is I think because of the gap between the glasses and the eye. A thing I HATE about having a high prescription for glasses is that my eyes look smaller because of the strong lens IYKWIM.

I could get some daily disposables to wear under the glasses...how long do daily disposables last? Do they have to be used in a month?

If you have soft non disposables lenses but only wear them say 2 days a week is that okay?

I use all in one cleaner. 1 bottle a month for £6. And I've had my lenses for a out 5 years.

No I only really go when something breaks. Bad I know!

My eyesight is pretty stable and only really deteriorates about 0.25 every five years.

I think I worked out my current way of doing it costs around £11 a month. I wanted to keep the cost down because my frames seemed to be so expensive c£200 - £300, due to the limited choice / challenge of finding ones I like and I am terrible for scratching or breaking them.

I then discovered specsavers after a yonk of not having glasses at all - not sure if lenses had come down in price but the pair I went for / they were keen on were about £125. They are actually too small though.

That's really good and would actually work out very similar as it includes the checks. Do they post it to you?

I’ve got similar prescription and switched years ago from gas permeable to extended wear soft lenses. They are designed to be worn 24/7 for up to a month.

these ones
www.visiondirect.co.uk/air-optix-night-and-day

There are some dailies that will do 16 hrs. And go up above -10. But you could be looking £30-36 for 30 pairs a month to get one that is good enough for this length of time. (They generally have 3-4 year shelf life when you get a box, but obviously a day once opened) There are cheaper ones out there but the materials are not as good so patients tend to get more discomfort and dryness.
Monthly disposable lenses last a calendar month regardless of how many times you have worn them so good value if wearing 5-7 days a week.

Where do you get this from for £6 a month?

I've been wearing gas permeable lenses for around 15-16 hours a day for the past 20-odd years. I usually replace them every year bur I have sometimes had the same pair for two years. I also have a very high prescription and really hate glasses, particularly as the lens of my glasses has to be so thick.

My lens care routine is to clean them at night with cleaner, soak them in all-in-one multi-purpose solution from Boots and then to put conditioning solution on them before I put them in. Boots seem to have reduced the range of GP lens solutions they sell and mostly has different multi-purpose ones now. I have to order barrel lens cases online as they don't seem to sell those anymore.

My experience with wearing soft lenses constantly is that my eyes stopped getting enough oxygen and I got that condition where blood vessels start growing into the eye. I only wear them one or 2 days a week max and no more than 5 hours.

I noticed that about Boots and get the cleaner usually on Amazon now.

I use a soft lens case. I've had a couple of bad experiences with barrel where I've unwittingly missed the connection and the lens has floated overnight and then suctioned itself to the bottom of the barrel, never to be removed! I guess the barrel is to allow proper circulation of fluid round the lens thought so I should probably get one again if I stick with GP!

https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/260584123?srsltid=AfmBOoqW27yL57gm6swLsLXdFYcyXI9lWhSJ4FdIqFlXK5v_bYFdK0Wj&productId=260584123

It's actually £4. I only use one bottle a month but I only use one lens so you might need two. I also do protein cleaner tablets every couple of months.