If you are buying your prescription colored contact lenses online, it can be difficult to test and try out the different colors you want to “dress” your eyes with.
Whether your overall appearance and outlook undergo a dramatic or subtle change, it depends on the color you decide to pick for your clothes, shoes, accessories, and yes… even your contact lenses.
That said, there are 7 tips to ensure what the delivery guy brings to your doorstep, is the change you are looking for, and not an unpleasant experience.
Table of contents
- What Should You Look For When Buying Prescription Colored Contacts
- 1.Get An Eye Exam For Prescription
- 2. The Right Eye & Iris Fit
- 3. Get Trusted, Credible & Certified Prescription Colored Contacts
- 4. Determine The Suitable Materials
- 5. Know Your Replacement Schedules
- 6. Selecting Your Mood and Outlook with Prescription Colours Contacts
- 7. Pigment Particles & Duration of Wear
- Can I Buy Prescription Colored Contact Lenses Online?
- Conclusion
Estimated reading time: 9 minutes
What Should You Look For When Buying Prescription Colored Contacts
Before we go into the ways to ensure a fun and adventurous journey into the world of contact lenses, we would like to emphasize the importance of prescriptions.
Prescriptions are the difference between healthy eyes and eyes that become damaged from scratches because of ill-fitting contact lenses. Please do not overlook how important they are.
1.Get An Eye Exam For Prescription
We can’t emphasize this enough. Go visit your local eye doctor and get a prescription.
Shop around for a local eye doctor who adheres to strict SOPs, because your doctor may have to get up close and personal with your eyes.
Our eyes are one of the most intimate assets that we use day in and day out and can usually take for granted. But an eye doctor can tell you things about your peepers, that may have never occurred to you at all. For example, the shape of your eye may require special made-to-order lenses.
If you have corneal irregularities, like keratoconus, large-diameter scleral lenses can correct the vision loss that comes with that cornea disorder.
Be aware that prescriptions for contacts and prescriptions for glasses are different. Lens power differs between the two. Spectacles are positioned at a distance from the eyes, while contact lenses are directly on the eyes.
Also, your eye doctor can inform you about eye conditions that you have. With this information, you can decide about correcting your vision (near-sightedness or long-sightedness), and conditions like astigmatism.
If your prescription contains the abbreviation CYL, that means ‘cylinder’. It represents the amount of lens power you need for astigmatism.
Axis is the number that informs your eye doctor which direction they should position cylindrical power in the lenses of your glasses or contacts.
Read More: How to Read Contact Lens Prescription and Get It Right
2. The Right Eye & Iris Fit
Beware of online eye exams. Have a fitting with a local doctor instead. The reason is that they will be able to measure each of your eyes to properly fit the lens. An online eye exam is not able to do this.
Also, a local eye doctor would be able to evaluate how your eye responds to contact lens wear and advise you on how to proceed.
A good fit is important, otherwise, there is a risk of corneal scratch and infection. You would also want your new color contact lens to give ample coverage for your iris, the part of your eye that has color.
This coverage is indicated by the abbreviations ‘BC’ and ‘DIA’. BC means base curve which specifies the shape of the lens, while DIA means the diameter of the lens required to fit your eye and not cause damage.
3. Get Trusted, Credible & Certified Prescription Colored Contacts
Shopping online has picked up tremendously as a trend because of the pandemic and social distancing. Buying something as customized and personalized as prescription colored contact lenses is especially tricky.
It is always a good idea to buy contact lenses from a seller that has FDA-cleared or ISO and CE approved contact lenses.
Also, it is important to ensure that the contact lenses delivered to you, have not expired. The seller who has your interests and eye health at heart, would not endanger your peepers with expired lenses.
If the contact lenses are expired, then insist for a fresh replacement from the online store you got them from.
Wearing contact lenses should be fun and adventurous, but most importantly safe!
4. Determine The Suitable Materials
By now, you may know there are many different types of lenses. They can be broadly categorized into material types, which in turn determines how disposable they are. Let me explain.
According to the FDA, there are soft contact lenses, and hard or Rigid Gas Permeable (RGP) contact lenses.
Soft contacts are soft and made of flexible plastics they allow oxygen to your cornea, and they are more comfortable. Thanks to advancements, there are softer contact lenses now made of materials like silicone-hydrogels.
Silicone hydrogels are the most popular materials used for contact lenses. It offers extremely high oxygen permeability, while the hydrogel component facilitates fluid transport and lens movement.
These will allow more oxygen to get to your eyes but because they are softer, some find it difficult to manage ie. Remove after wear.
RGP lenses are more rigid but would allow oxygen to permeate through. Because of the more rigid material, they are more durable and apparently resistant to deposit buildup. Because they last longer, in the long run, they end up being cheaper than soft contact lenses.
5. Know Your Replacement Schedules
Daily wears lenses, which technically means the use of a brand new pair every day, according to the FDA. A majority of these are soft contact lenses, and wearers must discard a pair after use, preferably at the end of a day.
Some contact lens sellers stretch the meaning of ‘disposable’ to also include ‘extended wear’. So the lens can be used continuously for a prescribed wearing period of 7 to 30 days before being disposed of.
Despite being designed to require minimal cleaning, it is still highly recommended to clean and disinfect lenses as part of your daily nighttime ritual.
Planned replacements are like extended wear lenses, but with a replacement schedule of every two weeks, monthly or quarterly.
If you are at a loss over the array of choices you have, your optometrist could help you decide which type of contact lens is suitable. As well as healthy for you and your set of peepers.
6. Selecting Your Mood and Outlook with Prescription Colours Contacts
This is the most fun part about getting contact lenses to wear, it can be as fun if not more, than picking out clothes to wear!
Of course, the occasion is one of the important determinants – is it for work, or is it for play?
Also, what is the look that you are going for? Unless there is a scary Halloween image you want to recreate, red-contact lenses may not gel very well with the fairy-tale princess character you want to get into.
You may already know, your skin tone and the color of your hair are also important factors to take into account. And don’t forget: the color that works for your clothes, may not necessarily work for your eyes.
7. Pigment Particles & Duration of Wear
A common problem with prescription colored contact lenses is that they leave eyeballs in direct contact with color pigments. With friction some pigment could get on your eyes, causing irritation or allergic reactions. Certain brands of contact lenses, solve this problem by enclosing the pigment particles in the lens matrix. This way, there is no direct contact with the eye at all.
If you are unable to find a brand that avoids direct eye contact with pigments, do consider reducing the duration you wear color contact lenses.
Can I Buy Prescription Colored Contact Lenses Online?
Buying prescription contact lenses online is safe provided you take into consideration, the 7 tips above.
You must ensure you buy from reputable sellers who stock only certified, FDA-approved and ISO-compliant contact lenses.
Also, it is imperative that you refer to the right prescription when you are ordering your colored contact lenses online. Look out for the BC and DIA measurements, this is to make sure that you are looking at the right prescription.
Take note that prescription colored contact lenses can do more than just change your outer appearance. They are quite capable of correcting your vision and addressing any other eye conditions you might have, so be sure to ask your eye doctor about the options that you can have.
Conclusion
Now, that you are all set to order your prescription colored contact lenses online, we hope you have a fun adventurous time with them. Enjoy the process, and remember to follow your doctor’s and seller’s instructions on how to keep the hygiene of, care for and safely use your newly bought device purchases.
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