Hacker News Reader

Comment by leetrout | Hacker News Reader

Now do the same for contact lenses. Or at least make it so a prescription is good for more than a year.

I hate this so much. Why can't I buy contact lenses with an expired prescription? I have a prescription, I feel my vision is fine. But I still have to go to an optometrist to get a new prescription, just to be told the power hasn't changed.

/rant

Someone Who Isn't Me may have been long buying contacts 'from Canada' online with an expired prescription. They're supposed to check prescription for US customers before shipment, but...

Way OT (but related): The state of Virginia prohibits liquor purchases from outside Virginia.

However — I have ordered and received such items from out of state vendors with home delivery without incident.

Do you mean you have to pay for this? In India, this is a free service offered by anyone who sells glasses / contact lens!

Yep. The prescriptions are only good for one year, and it's usually $50-$100 to get tested. Most places won't sell you more than a year's supply of lenses at a time either.

FWIW weekly and biweekly lenses are functionally identical to monthlies (dailies are different). The only difference is FDA rules meant to preserve artificial market segmentation. You can buy a years supply of weekly lenses and wear them longer.

The Land of the Free often ain't so.

Wait until you hear that Kinder Surprise are banned there, too.

If the land were truly free people wouldn't have to keep shouting it from their EPA regulated lifted trucks while listening to the FTC regulated radio for their favorite country star who uses copyright to keep people from freely playing their music.

I'm not sure what you are trying to say here?

1-800-Contacts will auto-renew your existing prescription in some states via a eye exam you can do on your phone. I think optometrists consistently sue them over that sort of tech to try to keep their useless glasses monopoly in an era where they really don't need to exist anymore.

Else order from Canada or the UK. Still cheaper to get a new exam at Costco in most cases.

You can. I've done it multiple times. Go read how the law is written. Companies have 24 hours to attempt to verify your prescription. If they can't get in contact with the doctor you listed they are allowed to sell you them anyway

My last prescription for contact lens was for a specific brand. Once I realized I wanted to go back to my last brand - I was told my current prescription didn't cover it. Instead of dealing with another appointment or calling up to complain - I just bought them from the a UK site willing to ship.

So silly.

What website do you use?

vision direct co uk

Buy dailies and wear them for two weeks. They're the same lenses.

Dailies aren't the same. They have a higher water content (more fragile) and eliminate processing steps intended to retard biofilm buildup.

https://www.bvoptometry.com/daily-contacts-vs-monthly-contac...

Now this would be a really interesting conspiracy if true.

It's very not true.

Even just taking a daily contact out once and immediately popping it back in can sometimes mangle it up enough to noticably fuck up my vision. Biweeklys are much more tough as they're actually designed to be handled.

Not trying to shit on dailies by the way, as they're actually the healthiest for your eyes if you can swing the cost.

>The reason behind the lawsuit? The suit claimed Johnson & Johnson had misled consumers and eye doctors that their Acuvue 1-day lenses had some type of special physical property that limited its use to 1 day when, in fact, they were identical to regular Acuvue lenses, which were bi-weekly contacts.

https://www.bvoptometry.com/daily-contacts-vs-monthly-contac...

Order them from Canada online. Don’t feed the corruption.

Any good websites online to get them from?

Sorry I live abroad so buy them infrequently when back in the USA and I can’t find my order receipts in my email to check. I’m sure all the sites work. Funnily enough I’m pretty sure the “Canadian” site I ordered from shipped them to me from a warehouse in Washington.

You could also just move to a more sensible country?

Seems cheaper just to pay for new prescriptions

Definitely for a one off, and also if that's the only thing that annoys you.

I was more pointing out that other countries handle this better.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com