Mar 23, 2001 09:18 AM
5474 Views
1984
My experiences with Bausch & Lomb go back to when I was in high school and a new contact wearer. Back in the early to mid 1980’s, contact manufacturers did not make contacts in soft lenses (or even disposable lenses) to accommodate my near-sitedness/astigmatism ratio, so I was forced to use gas-permeable contacts.
Gas permeable lenses are next to sticking shards of glass into your eyes in case you have never had the pleasure of experiencing them. Also, I kept losing them at $70/lens every time I blinked wrong because they would pop right out of my eyes and hit someone.
My Eye Doctor’s Choice of Solutions
Bausch & Lomb was the solution brand I was sent home with from my eye doctor. Multipurpose solutions are much easier and much cheaper to work with than the old way of buying one bottle for cleanser/disinfectant, one bottle for saline, and one kit for enzyme remover. All these cleaners/wetters were messy and time consuming. Multipurpose solutions I have found are just as good as cleaning and wetting as the stand-alone bottles.
Problems Surfaced
However, I noticed something from the time I began to wear these contacts that my eyes would turn incredibly red after wearing them. I first thought it was the contacts. A few years later (since I had given up on wearing them for a few years after my high school disaster), I tried the astigmatic extended-wear lenses and once again was sent home from the eye doctor with Bausch & Lomb products.
I now wonder what kind of kick backs this doctor got for peddling their products, but I do know it was not in the patient’s best interest. Bausch & Lomb solutions broke me out! Even with these contacts my eyes turned into two tomatoes from the irritation. I tried to “get use to” this solution and even tried their solutions for sensitive eyes; however, none worked for me.
Resolution
I had to switch to Alcon, then after a few years, due to the same itchy, red eye allergy from the solution, I switched to Comfort Plus Complete (my new eye doctor recommended this). I did not know that after a time people can develop allergies to certain solutions. I suppose the Bausch & Lomb brand was just the wrong mix of chemicals.
Conclusion
Bausch & Lomb solutions did not seem to be any better than any other product I have used before and was harder on my eyes than any of the others. My eyes were constantly red and itchy while using this product.
