Contact Lenses: Why it is ILLEGAL to buy lenses without a prescription
color contact lenses 11:48 PM
Leave it to Friday to get my most shocking patient admittance of the week. At this point in my career, not much is surprising me anymore. People routinely admit to grossly overwearing contact lenses. Heck, I have even seen people put their contact lenses in their mouth right in front of me before putting them in their eyes. I talk to my patients about any risks in their contact lens practices, but not much takes me by surprise anymore.
Until today, of course. Today I had a patient that wanted to talk to me about contact lenses. We discussed her vision and her options, but she told me at this point she preferred to just keep getting her color lenses. Of course, I had to figure out what she meant, since I knew she had never had a contact lens prescription before. Apparently contact lenses are being sold in a rural area near the city where I practice in a quote "Chinese Meat Market."
Lovely.
Color lenses are fun, but are thicker and usually less oxygen permeable than clear lenses, making them an even larger risk to your cornea! Appropriate wear is essential to maintaining ocular health |
The word is slowly getting around to buyers and sellers of these "over the counter" color and "effect" contact lenses that it is ILLEGAL to sell contact lenses to anyone without a prescription. And a legal prescription has to specify exactly the name of the brand, the parameters of the lens, and the power of the lens. In order for a contact lens prescription to legally be written, the lens must be evaluated by a licensed optometrist or ophthalmologist on the wearer's eye. Yes, that means even novelty contact lenses with zero power require a prescription.
Why?
I don't need to litter this post with a lot of disgusting pictures; you have seen them all if you have read the contact lens posts on my blog (like this post). Contact lenses are medical devices that are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration due to the high amount of complications and risk for permanent blindness that result from improper use. Any seller of contact lenses that is doing so without using current prescription information is in violation of several FDA laws, and can incur a fine of $11,000. When I tell this to patients, they are often shocked to learn of the amount of legislation involved with purchasing contact lenses legally. To better illustrate why contact lenses are so dangerous, let me paint a picture:
Every time you put a contact lens on your eye, the corneal tissue underneath begins a slow process of suffocating, all the while being exposed to new bacteria and microbial species that love cool dark places like contact lens cases, but love eating away at your eye tissue even more. Wow, contact lenses sound like fun right?