This patient from Dr. Bazan’s office shares her experience.

It really does help to see the doctor to get the best contacts for your eyes. Not only contacts, but info about contact lens solutions. I can’t tell you how many people love ClearCare yet they had never heard of it before I explained it.

I wish people would value the doctor.

BUT, should the law should punish people who buy contacts without a real prescription?

The libertarian in me says no. I should be able to buy antibiotics at the pharmacy without a prescription if I want. The only thing bringing some people in for an eye exam is getting that piece of paper, but it turns out some people don’t even bother with the Rx paper and just game the mail-order system.

The solution? Teach people to value the doctor. We can foster that value every time the patient has an evaluation by explaining how glad we are that they came in. We must be sure to educate how great it is that they had an eye exam whenever:

1. their Rx changes
2. we change their contacts to a better lens for comfort and eye health
3. we recommend a better, more compatible, care system for their eyes and contact lenses
4. we educate them on the latest and greatest options for them, even if they don’t want or require a change in lens or care system
5. they have a medical condition related to their eyes

And I don’t hold the prescription over their heads. The Utah law is that I make the expiration date for two years if their eyes are healthy; however, I frequently mention that it is best to have a yearly eye exam, especially if they note even a subtle change in their vision.

I posted an entry on my practice website about the Biofinity lens. Within less than 2 hours, I got the following comment in the comment moderation cue:

Author : John Bird (IP: ***.**.**.** , [URL removed to protect the innocent])
E-mail : jbird@aol.com
URL :
Whois : http://ws.arin.net/cgi-bin/whois.pl?queryinput=***.**.**.**
Comment:
I have tried Biofinity and quickly went back to Oasys. Oasys is a more comfortable lens, and it doesn’t have the problems with protein build up that Biofinity does.

Before approving the comment, I sent the following e-mail to “John Bird”:

Mr. Bird,
I’m skeptical of your comment. Tell me who you are, how you know the
phrase “protein build up” and how you happened upon my article shortly
after it was posted, and then I’ll think about approving it for my
patients to see.

Then I recieved word from AOL that the message couldn’t be delivered:

This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification

Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:

jbird@aol.com

Technical details of permanent failure:
PERM_FAILURE: SMTP Error (state 13): 550 MAILBOX NOT FOUND

So, someone made up a fake name and e-mail address and tried to push people away from Biofinity to Acuvue Oasys. The IP address links the poster to a company named ************, a “***** ******* *** ****** ******* firm.” He could be just a random employee of a big company in New York who happens to subscribe to content from the website of a small optometrist office in Utah.

Or…what do you think?

And is there any truth to Biofinity getting deposit build up? From what I’ve read the Aquaform material is supposed to resist deposits.