<p>I’m thinking about buying contact lenses online. The only place that seems to carry them is called shipmycontacts.com. Anybody think there’s anything wrong with that? It saves about $50 off buying them from the doctor’s office. This is a new prescription - I just want to make sure my son has a lot of lenses at school when he leaves, so he isn’t tempted to wear one pair too long. Thanks for ideas.</p>
<p>I’ve also done business with 1800contacts.com and been very pleased. They’re the same contacts you get from the eye doctor. I’ve saved lots of money with them.</p>
<p>drugstore.com (a very reputable company) also can link you to visiondirect.com—I’ve done business with them too, and had a good experience.</p>
<p>I’ve been very happy with 1-800-GET-LENS. Very nice people to deal with.</p>
<p>I’ve dealt with 1-800 contacts for several years, and didn’t have a problem until last summer when there were apparently quite a few batches of “bogus” lenses that were sent out to customers. The ones that we knew about were the Proclear Compatibles (monthly lenses), so they had to be returned to the lab,were refunded the cost of the lenses, and re-ordered them through the opthalmologist. In this case, I wouldn’t take a chance on 1-800 contacts for that reason. Otherwise, they were fine up until that point. If you ask about it, they’ll probably just say that it rarely happens or it was a one-time only experience, but based on that one-time experience, it was one too many as far as I’m concerned. You’ll probably pay a little more ordering them through the ophthalmologist, but then if something’s wrong with them, you will always have the doctor’s office to back you up.</p>
<p>nyumom:
Thanks for that info. (And thanks everyone else too!) I have ordered from 1-800contacts in the past with no trouble for myself. Interestingly, my son’s contacts are the Proclear Compatibles and 1-800contacts listed them as “discontinued.” The only place I could find them was at shipmycontacts.com. But, that makes me pretty nervous to think that there could be fake ones kicking around out there. Thanks again.</p>
<p>weenie:
Thanks for your helpful post. I thought that my kids were the only ones wearing Proclear Compatibles, so that’s interesting that they are now “discontinued”. I’m not surprised considering what happened last summer - we were down the shore, and my daughter opened up a fresh box of them, and then when she went to put them in, they were all blurry - she ended up going through the box (6 lenses), and they were all bad. As a result, she had to wear her glasses for the entire trip (which was only for a few days), but it was somewhat annoying, and of course, shouldn’t have happened in the first place. Meanwhile, my son never had a problem with them - it’s just luck, I guess, and the fact that he had a different power/strength/lot # which wasn’t recalled.</p>
<p>Also have had good luck with 1-800-contacts. S wears Focus Dailies. They were the ONLY lens he could adjust to. Of course, he has to have the expensive ones…</p>
<p>younger D wears proclear compatibles
1-800-contacts doesn’t stock them any more or at least they couldn’t get them when we needed to reorder so I found coastal contacts who did.
she hasn’t had a problem</p>
<p>I’ve used LENS 123 with no problems (and for Proclears, I believe, but well over a year or more ago). The “bulk” of our family contacts (and that’s a bunch) come from Costco, though. The lazy people at my house are fond of the daily disposable. By using them a second day when convenient and the decreased need for saline and cleaner, it becomes an almost reasonable option. Plus I didn’t have concerns about how clean my 10 year old was keeping his contacts (used only for sports). Now if I could just improve the aim at the trash can…</p>
<p>I used LENS 123 because Costco, at that time, did not handle Proclears and comparison shopping had that as about the cheapest source with our vision plan.</p>
<p>vulture:
I wish they’d put my son in the daily ones! I think they are great idea. His Dr says he has too much astigmatism - but I thought they made them for that too. Sometimes I worry that these doctors prescribe certain lenses based on things you can’t figure out (relationships with vendors?), but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he knows something about my kid’s eyes that I don’t! :)</p>
<p>We’ve gotten ProClear Compatibles from go-optic as recently as May-no problems. H and the 3 kids are all in different lenses so we have ordered from several of the online places mentioned, but hearing nyumom’s story does make me a little nervous.</p>
<p>Weenie,</p>
<p>Unless there are some dailies for astigmatism that I don’t know about yet, I think your doctor is right. I have severe astigmatism and can only wear lenses that are disposed of every three months. My year’s supply consists of four sets. They are very expensive, so I try to wear them four months before disposal whenever possible.</p>
<p>What kind of lenses does your son use?</p>
<p>I think that 1800 contacts is a great choice</p>
<p>parentofteen:
He uses Proclear Compatibles Toric. He was using something else until recently, but was having problems with dry eyes and they put him on these which seem to be working well.</p>
<p>Apparently, some of the toric lenses are not available online. Mine are made by CooperVision: Preference Toric XR, and the last time I checked with 1-800-Contacts, they did not carry them at all. I wish that I could order them online, but I do know that my ophthalmologist does not overprice to the extent that some of his local competitors do. I drive to a neighboring town for my eye checkups for this very reason. It pays to check prices among eye doctors. They often vary greatly.</p>
<p>I use 1800Contacts. I wear toric Frequency. They’re 1 month disposables. I’ve never experienced any problems.</p>
<p>Thanks to everyone for your informative posts. I just wanted to mention that when the “incident” happened with my daughter’s lenses last summer, I took it upon myself to call directly to Cooper Vision (since my husband works in the medical/laboratory field, I felt that it was my duty to report the error immediately and without hesitation to the proper authorities), and I actually was able to reach the person at their lab who handles the Proclear Compatibles directly, and she said that they were being sold on the “black market” or by a middleman, and that the ones that we purchased from 1-800 Contacts did not actually, in fact, come from Cooper Vision directly. There were about 20 different lot #'s that were effected by this mistake. I finally did receive a list of the lot #'s from 1-800 Contacts, but by that time, I had already taken care of it. I told both of my kids that if they’re going on a trip, and they’re planning on taking a new box of lenses, they should open up the box and make sure that at least one or two of the lenses work before leaving. After all, it’s only your eyesight!</p>
<p>nyumom:
When you made that call did you get the impression that all the internet places get them on the “black market”? Or was that a fluke with those particular lot numbers? Thanks.</p>
<p>I wrote to Cooper Vision and asked them if there was any reason to not buy their lenses on the internet and here is what they wrote back:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Hmmm…I guess I’ll shell out the extra $50!</p>
<p>When I talked with the person at Cooper Vision, we did discuss the possibility of whether this kind of situation happens on a regular basis, or if it was just a fluke, and of course, she could only comment on Cooper Vision and said that there’s no guarantee on the quality of lenses unless they’re ordered directly from the ophthalmologist’s office to Cooper Vision, which I know for a fact, that our ophthalmologist does order the lenses directy from them. According to Cooper Vision, the defective lenses were not purchased from them by 1-800 Contacts. That’s why it took a while for them to figure out what was going on. In fact, I was in direct contact via telephone with this same person at Cooper Vision’s lab, who actually got to take a look at my daughter’s “bogus” lenses, because I sent them directly to her, and she said that they were blanks, and she couldn’t believe herself what she was seeing after running some tests on them. When my daughter put them in, no wonder she couldn’t see a thing. I was probably the first person who called and reported it to Cooper Vision, because they weren’t even aware of it, but I made such a “stink” out of it, that they had to investigate it. I just felt that it was too important not to. I knew that there was something “funny” about them, because my daughter is vigilant with her contacts, and she would know the difference between a “good” lens and a “defective” lens. Then it turned out that there were other boxes of “tainted” or “bogus” lenses which were purchased by other 1-800 Contacts customers. My advice would be when you order from one of these companies, ask if they get them directly from the actual pharmaceutical firm or from a third-party/distributor, etc. After this episode, they should be more careful as to where/how these contacts are dispensed.
Again, in answer to your question - it was only on certain lot numbers, but it wasn’t legit in my opinion, and the woman at the Cooper Vision lab thought the same thing.</p>