anyone buy contact lenses online? and can anyone help out with reading my prescription?

[whitelillies]

The cost of my contact lenses is astronomical, so i m wondering about buying them online. Anyone any experience of this? i ve googled and there s lots of sites - do I just choose and hope for the best?

I need toric ones so they re a bit more expensive (one day acuvue seem to be the ones I find most tolerable)
Also my optician wrote out my script but I cant make head nor tale of it .
They wrote out base curve (8.5), diam (14.5) and power
the power has two values eg
rt - 0.001-1.75x100
Lt- 0.001-1.75x70
I cant seem to undestand where this goes on the order forms online. they look for power and cylinder values ... I dont think I have a cylinder value.
Thanks in advance if anyone can explain this!

CoteDAzur your health will in no way be damaged by ordering lenses online, but it may well be damaged by not having regular eye checks.

I've ordered from Asda before and have also found that they do check with the optician where and when I said I last had my test. I used to havce softlense toric can't remember the name by bosch and lumb I think??) from Boots that were 240 a year and at asda were 96 for 12 months supply.

I changed to accuvue recently oasis or something torics and so so so much more comfotable. They were 32 per month from Boots, they were cheaper in asda but they did not go high enough for my rx (apologies for all the non-tec talk here). Boots then reduced their prices and they are now 25 ish a month and you get 10% off Boots own stuff so save loads on wipes, No7 makeup etc.

I tried the daily ones which were more expensive but again the sight was not great as they were not really suited to my rx. Mine I think is 9.5 in the good eye and 14.5 in the not so good one but can't remember the other detials.

no probs whitelillies - glad i could help. You did the best thing though in going back to your opticians and asking them.

Just be aware that you should also have contact lens checks (not the same as a sight test) that just check the fit of your lenses, and the health of your eye etc with regard to wearing lenses.

normally that check is free, but if you buy your lenses online it may well now cost you.

can i ask you how well you find your torics correct your sight? i always found (as i am desperate to use CL but just cant!) that i could see way better in my specs than in my lenses - my former employer and excellent optom told me that unless i went for gas permeable lenses my sight would never be quite as good in cl than in specs - thats cos gas perms are made individually for your eye, but they kill to start with and take a huge effort to get used to. im too much of a wuss to try them plus i have slightly dry eyes. I tried loads of different types of soft toric but couldnt see terribly well in them.

do you find your torics correct your sight to as good a level as your specs do? im a very similar rx to you btw....

I used to buy mine from Daysoft. Cheap, reliable, quick delivery and the most comfortable soft lenses I've ever worn.

I use torics for astigmatism, but can see slightly better in glasses. I was told if I went for dailies my vision would be slightly worse still. So it depends a lot on the individual lenses.

I buy online. I get free tests at Costco, and maybe order maybe one set of lenses from them, and then get them online for the rest of the year. Cheaper, and easier to get them delivered.

ItsAll - I do have regular checks, especially now that I have come to an age (40) where my prescription has been changing at an alarming rate and in unpredictable ways - one eye went from -1.75 myopia to -1.25 myopia and then to +0.50 hypermetropia plus -2.00 astigmatism!

Vicar - Why can't you wear contact lenses?

Hi vicar
I have only recently -at my last eye check - found lenses that are Comfy! Which was a benefit of having regular eye and lenses check. I used bausch and Lomb softens and found they were tolerable
But not great sight so I only wore lenses on nights out and special occasions ! . After my check the optician suggested trialling different brands again - so
I tried (2 weekly ) and acuvue moist one day for astygmatism. They are super! I can wear them so comfortably for the whole day and I love love love not wearing glasses. Again though I only wear them on days I m got stuff on, still
Use the glasses too though. My optician said there s lots f different options for astigmatism now. I d say look
Into it again.

i may well do that then thanks whitelillies. i trialled the bausch and laumb lenses without much sucess.

i trialled the daily acuvue lens without success but didnt try the 2 weekly lens.

i would love to wear lenses as my glasses arent really practical on a rainy day, and i always worry about them getting broken if i end up in a tussle at work

Cotes - i trialled several different torics - firstly i have dry eye so lenses can be uncomfortable for me and i have raging hay fever in summer.

and because i am astigmatic my sight is just never as well corrected in CL as it is in specs.

its a very common problem for astigmatics -contact lenses are a bit of a compromise.

Vicar - if it's been a while since you tried then you might find them better now. Torics are much more stable on the eye than they used to be, and I get many more successful patients with them now than I did 10 years ago (I'm an optom).

OP - several posters have mentioned Daysoft, but they don't do toric lenses. And they're rubbish!

thanks for that burn - i will have another go. i think the last time i trialled torics was around 5 years ago.

it always narked me that i worked in optics, did contact lens teaches, dispensed the most complex of rx and couldnt take my own advice!

I use the accuvue too, the oasys ones, 2 weekly. Def the best I have tried.

So funny to have found this thread! I went to a new optician this week and walked away with a very expensive bill. I never thought of buying lenses online before. Does anyone know a good site where you can get gas permeable lenses? Or is it not recommended for this type of lens?

Vicar - I have astigmatism in one eye and know what you mean re compromise.

If you have dry eyes, don't even try daily lenses because those dry up considerably by the end of the day. In your place, I would wear monthly lenses and change them every three weeks.

I don't have any formal training in this subject but have been wearing contact lenses since 1979 (I was 8) so have considerable experience

I order mine from feelgood contacts great price and service. You can also get cashback and a discount of your first order.

moneysaving expert has a new contact lense comparison tool so you can find the best price for your lenses.

I second what cote says about the dailys and dry eyes. I tried daysoft and after a couple of hours it was agony, bright red eyeball and what felt like a lense dried out and stuck to my eyeball!

I did a trial of biofinity monthly lenses with the optician, got my prescription and now order online with huge savings.

I tried monthlies and 2 weeklies and dailies. The oasys 2 weekly ones were good but the acuvue moist are superb. The monthlies were not as good. I find I get the best I ve ever gotten in terms of correction and vision.
I ve been told that The dryness in my eyes may not let me wear CL but I can wear these and I work in a hospital (air con) and wear them to work. I didn't find the monthly ones worked as well for me. Especially as towards the end of the use of the lenses they would be gritty and uncomfy. Also I prefer with the dailies I don't have to wash and use
Solution etc and as I don't wear lenses every day it s fine. I was advised by the optician that the monthlies lasted a month from Opening. So even if not wearing them you have to dump them at ye end of the month. And I couldn't lengthen this out as the lenses were as I said feeling gritty etc.
As your prescription is similar to mine and you ve dry eyes too I would strongly advise you to try the acuvue moist for astygmatism. They moist part is supposed to help drier eyes I think.
Good luck!

Incidentally Which? magazine had something this month on buying lenses online.

Apparently the law is that 'online sellers must confirm a buyer has a valid contact lens prescription by seeing it, or checking with the optician who supplied it'. Only Asda and The Contact Lens Shop out of the 15 companies they tested obeyed the law.

Unfortunately they don't list the other 13 places!

They had a feature on buying glasses online too and found a similar thing, that online places would sell prescriptions that either weren't measured when they should have been, or could be dangerous when driving, or didn't conform to the British Standard requirements.

Not that I'm one to talk, D & A were horrified at me recently when I walked in with glasses and contact lenses that are so old I can't remember when I got them

I've been using Daysoft for a couple of years, think they are great, cheap, good cust service, I'd definitely recommend them

And, by the way, I always have my annual contact lens check & 2 yearly eye test at my local specsavers. They are fine with this, each costs me approx £25, which the Daysoft savings more than pay for...

see when i worked in optics i thought the daysoft were cheap and cheerful but some people were fine with them.

Hermione - thats what i was talking about - some optical outlets see "sales" and some see "eyecare" and thats the difference.

i always worked in eyecare.

thanks again whitelillies - that could be useful to me - ive been out of optics for since 2009, so things may well have moved on in CL for astigmatism.

"I usually only go to the opticians every 5 or 6 years or so...."

As an ex contact lenses wearer all I can say is that is an extremely dim thing to do. It is so important you get your eyes checked over more regularly than every 5 or six years. You have absolutely no idea what an optician can spot at an eye test - not just your prescription, but potential health problems.

I have RGP lenses too could you share the website which you are getting them from please? My optician charges me £250 if you say you can get them for $40 i would like to know the website if you dont mind... thank you

@Ero345 this is a zombie thread, and it’s full of rubbish information too. Please don’t buy RGP lenses online. They are notoriously difficult to fit and unless you can get the exact specifications of your actual contact lens prescription it will likely be a waste of time!