peterskim

I went to the eye doctor recently for an eye exam. One of the nice things about having an eye doctor who is a friend is that she is willing to indulge my obsession with trying out different consumer products.

I’ve always worn Johnson and Johnson Acuvue lenses. I started out with the Acuvue 2 lenses then upgraded to the Acuvue Advance. When the Oasys came out, I tried them but didn’t think they were different enough from the Advance to justify its higher prices. However, with the current rebate promotion that Johnson and Johnson is doing now on the Oasys lenses ($100 rebate on 8 boxes for new Acuvue Oasys wearers), I was willing to give the Oasys a shot, since after the rebate, it would actually make them cheaper than the Advance.

Also, whenever I go over to my friend’s place, I read through her optometry magazines; they’re actually really interesting! They have reviews on different contact lenses and lens solutions. I don’t know if Consumer Reports also does these sort of reviews, but it’s sort of a shame that more people aren’t aware that these types of reviews exist. Anyway, that’s how I found out about the Ciba Vision O2 Optix. Johnson and Johnson is like the Microsoft of the contact lens industry — most people feel no reason to try anything other than Acuvue lenses. However, I’m always willing to give the little guy a shot, so I told my eye doctor friend that I wanted to try to O2 Optix, even though I was pretty happy with the Advance.

I started wearing the Acuvue Oasys last week; for some reason, my eyes felt dryer than when I wore the Advance. I don’t know if that was a result of air conditioning or some other external factor. At the end of the week, I started wearing the O2 Optix sample that my eye doctor friend gave me. My eyes definitely felt less dry with the O2 Optix, so I think my eyes definitely must not have liked the Oasys for some reason.

Between the Acuvue Oasys and the O2 Optix, the O2 Optix wins for me. However, I’m not quite done. As I was looking for more information on the O2 Optix lenses, I discovered that Ciba Vision seems to be more heavily promoting their Air Optix Aqua lens, which is a monthly replacement silicon hydrogel (as opposed to the O2 Optix, which is a two week replacement lens). It’s really hard to find any information on what the differences are between the O2 Optix and the Air Optix Aqua — I wish Ciba Vision provided a comparison chart on their website, but they don’t.

Next step — I will ask my eye doctor friend for a trial pair of Air Optix Aqua and see how those are. Then I’ll have to decide whether I want to break my eight year relationship with Johnson and Johnson. :)