Contact lens startup Hubble sold lenses with a fake prescription
qz.com
qz.com
I've been making up my own prescriptions for years. I had the astigmatism measured, but I like to set my own reading power to focus on my screen in the most comfortable position.
There's a few ways you could get eye damage from even a correct prescription. One way is corneal staining (basically scratches on your eye) that becomes a bigger issue with some sorts of contact solution and contacts worn past their expected time.
Improperly fitted contacts can cause irritation and damage. There are many types of contacts suited to different wear patterns. There are also formulations of silicone hydrogels where people are allergic to the wetting agent. A doctor should be able to figure this out and switch you to a different composition if this poses a problem.
Other issues are infection and oxygen starvation. The cornea absorbs oxygen and when you have an old contact in for too long the eye does things like grow veins where they should not be, eventually causing blindness.[1]
Long story short, you should be getting checkups to make sure your eye isn't getting screwed up from contact lens wear, but under the situation of being stuck with old pairs or getting replacements without a script, I'd say the latter is probably safer.
not from a correction power perspective. your brain can accommodate to some degree and you may strain your eye muscles and/or get headaches. but you won't get damage from that. you can get damage if the contacts are not fitted well and get corneal abrasions etc or bacteria buildup if you over-wear.
however, you should still go in to see an eye doctor once in a while. my wife's an optometrist and she has saved several people's lives by finding brain tumors and other serious systemic issues by looking at ocular health.
By the way the "no news is good news" rule isn't that unusual: if you file an IND (request to experiment with a new drug or existing drug in a new way) the FDA has 30 days to tell you "no" or "wait, we need more info" -- no response is considered an OK (though they are free to push the stop button later). Although I have not had that happen (got positive OK from the agency) I have plenty of colleagues who have gone all the way (phase II, NDA even) without ever getting an IND response from the FDA.
Let's save the outrage articles for deserving cases -- it's not like there's a shortage.
It's a confused kind of outrage because on one hand, if she actually believes she's doing a public service by pointing out how lax the law is and how loose this company is being with public health, then maybe I want her to know civilised countries let you order contacts online without a prescription! It's a non-issue; nobody is going to lie about contact lenses, it's extremely low risk, and honestly, maybe the company should be praised (she just doesn't know it).
On the other hand, if she's just into clickbait and doesn't care about public safety; that she's actually willing to hatchet-job a company, potentially ruin those employees lives, and cost anyone who needs contact lenses more money (which is wow! expensive in the US! A box of 30 lenses is like £8 here!), then seriously, what a jerk!
> which is wow! expensive in the US! A box of 30 lenses is like £8 here!
These two points are probably related.
Do you also need a prescription for glasses?
In that time, I've also bought 4 or 5 pairs of glasses, I got Specsavers to print off my prescription, and just buy them online.
It was interesting trying to get my prescription from Specsavers. By law, they are required to provide it if I ask for it, but they really didn't want to make it easy. They actually make a loss on eye tests ($30 for 20 minutes of an optometrist), because all their profit is in the glasses, so if I take my prescription elsewhere, I'm costing them money.
It’s truly a racket. If you break your glasses on day 366, you can’t get a new pair without paying the eye exam tax.
I haven't gotten a prescription for my eyeglasses in about 4 years, I get new glasses about once a year, and just buy the $50 cheapies from Clearly.
Another fun one: you can get and consume 3 x 200mg ibuprofen tablets over the counter (Costco sell jars of 500 200mg tablets as a two pack so you get 1,000 pills at once!) However to get 600mg pills requires a prescription.
US is a funny place.
I got a glasses prescription 5 years ago and haven't paid for another one because I can still see 20/20. I order my glasses from Zenni where you can just punch the prescription in and get the glasses in the mail.
This is a non-story.
Looks like I just found my new contacts provider.
But then again, I also think it's crazy that if I stopped by the drug store to buy some pseudoephedrine on my way to gun show, it would be illegal to sell the pseudoephedrine but legal to sell the gun.....
It's just a bunch of little lenses, not a shipment of plutonium.
You can buy reading glasses in various diopters off a self-serve rack in pharmacies and other kinds of retail outlets.
The actual case is that they just skirt around the regulations that require a prescription. Where I live, we don't need a prescription for lenses, and we manage to survive.
It's saved my ass a few times while traveling.