Acuvue Oasys Lenses Cause Red Eyes
Published October 12th, 2007 in Small TalkNote: I have switched back to Acuvue 2 lenses, this time opting for the colored ones.
Previously, I mentioned that I was having problems with my “Acuvue Oasys with Hydraclear Plus” contact lenses. My eyes would become red, irritated, itchy, and would even have a minor discharge. It was surprising because these are new lenses and supposed to be some of the best you can buy (and sure should be for the price!). After a bit of research and experimentation, I found a solution that works for me.
I was previously using Kirkland (Costco brand) multi-purpose solution. When I found out that the solution may contribute to the problem, I tried Aquify, which is made by CIBA Vision Corporation. Aquify was a big improvement. I started to be able to wear the contact lenses for several days without problems, but they still weren’t as problem-free as I would have liked. With the previous brands of lenses I have used, I have never had any problems, but I was still ending up with red, irritated eyes. Sometimes it took 3 days, sometimes 7, but the lenses never consistently lasted as long as they were supposed to.
I moved on to a solution called “Clear Care” by the same company. It uses hydrogen peroxide (among other ingredients) to really clean the lenses. I’m sure you can imagine that hydrogen peroxide is not something you want in your eyes, and the cleaner comes with a special case that you have to use, which neutralizes the solution. After a couple of hours (they recommend six or more), the solution is essentially harmless. Since you can’t put Clear Care directly on your lenses before putting them in, I use the Aquify drops for that purpose. I like to have one or two drops on the lenses before putting them in.
Since I’ve been using Clear Care, I have had no problems with the Acuvue Oasys lenses. No more red eyes. No more irritation. No more discharge (”eye-goopies”). The lenses are great now. If I hadn’t been so frustrated by the ordeal, I would probably say these are now the best lenses I have ever had. Unfortunately, I am still rather annoyed that neither Acuvue nor the eye doctor even mentioned the possibility of problems nor potential solutions. If you’re having trouble with your Acuvue Oasys lenses, give Clear Care a try.
As a final note, the Aquify solution came with Aquify Long Lasting Comfort Drops. These drops are awesome! Commercials are always trying to convince you that their drops are “just like tears,” but I’ve typically found that drops for contact lenses are either slightly irritating or don’t last long. These drops work perfectly for me and I definitely recommend them if you wear contacts and have to work on computers for long periods of time.
24 Responses to “Acuvue Oasys Lenses Cause Red Eyes”
- 1 Pingback on Oct 12th, 2007 at 5:07 pm
- 2 Pingback on Jun 20th, 2008 at 7:08 pm
I’m so glad I came across your blog. I’ve been having the EXACT same problems with my eyes for the past couple of years. I’ve been wearing contacts since I was 17, and had no problems whatsoever. Then I switched to the Acuvue Oasys a few years ago. They were alright at first, then I started getting eye infections. My eye doctor told me that I just must not be cleaning my lenses properly and to try a different solution. Well that didn’t work. So then he said I had eye allergies and prescribed me Patanol. I used this every day, before I put my contacts in and after I took them out, and it seemed to help the redness a bit and kept the infections away for a year or so. But then I bought some new contact lenses (same brand) a few months ago since I ran out and ever since I’ve been on those new ones, I’ve been to the doctors 5 times with eye infections. I’m so fed up and frustrated since I don’t want any eye damage. They kept saying that I must be touching my eyes and keep re-contaminating my eyes, but I was like no! I’ve been really clean, using new contacts each time my eyes clear up, using brand new makeup, I’m not doing anything wrong. So I searched about the contacts online and found your blog. i’m so glad I’m not the only one with this problem! I’ll try out the Clear Care solution, but I plan on switching my contacts to a different brand soon.
I tried Acuve Oasys for the first time on 6/15, and on 6/19 a slight irritation started in my left eye. I could not bare this feeling so I removed the contact. It just got worse as the day progressed. At first I thought perhaps I had conjunctivitus (sp?) so I made an appt with my family doctor on 6/20. My doctor immediately advised me that I had an ulcer on my cornea and I needed to see a specialist right away. Long story short, I lived in total darkness for a little over a week as sunlight or any light was too painful to bare. I could have lost sight in this eye and today it is still not the same. I have been advised to never wear contacts again. So after 20 years of wearing contacts, I am having to change everything and believe me it has become a financial burden. I am writing this story in hopes to see if this is a pattern for this particular contact, because if it is this product should be banned.
im very surprised a lot of people have problems with these contacts. i’ve been wearing acuvue-2 for two years or so and they were perfectly fine. however, due to lack of oxygen, my optometrist told me to try oasys. so i tried the trial ones in december 2007 and they felt great. i didnt find any difference between acuvue-2 and oasys except they were harder to take out. after the trial, i bought a few boxes and finished my remaining acuvue-2. in february 2008, i started wearing oasys and i don’t know why, my right eye felt really irritating. it was painful everytime i blinked. when i took off the lenses, there were lots of veins around the white part of the eyes. i think i used it for around a month and then i went to an optometrist (another optometrist). i told him all the symptoms and he was actually quite surprised to hear all about it. he said my eyes were fine and told me to try advance. i wore them for the trial and they felt the same as oasys. the veins in my eyes never faded, even when they are taken out. i went back again and asked for Focus dailies ones because i thought it would be cleaner.
i use to wear contacts around 6 days a week, but now i have went down to only around 3. it’s july 2008 now but the veins in my eyes are still there! i went to a family doctor and he thought i had pink eye. he prescribed me antibiotics for the eyes and i used them for 10 days (glasses everyday) and the veins were still there.
after reading this blog, i immediatly went and bought clear care, except its not called clear care here in australia, its called Aosept. i opened new oasys two days ago and i’m not sure if it is because of the solution from the new contacts, but my eyes were really veiny. i wore glasses yesterday and plan to wear contact lenses today and see if aosept will be better for me. =)
From what I’ve read (and I had the same experience), pink eye seems to be the common thought when these lenses first cause trouble. Hopefully the Aosept will work for you; it (as Clear Care) helped a lot for my eyes, but in the end I switched back to Acuvue 2. I’ve never had problems with the Acuvue 2 lenses and, with the Clear Care, their comfort level is pretty close to the Oasys lenses. The Oasys lenses are supposed to be more breathable, letting in significantly more oxygen, but that doesn’t help too much if they’re causing all kinds of trouble! You might want to wear glasses for a few days before switching back to contacts to make sure they’ve had some time to recover. Hopefully you’ll have better luck!
I’ve had problems with Acuvue Oasys as well. After several successful months with Oasys, I started getting throbbing and red eye. The red eye doesn’t seem to want to go away despite my not wearing contacts at all anymore. Before Oasys, I wore Acuvue and Acuvue2 with NO problems for 14 years.
I have just switched from daily wear contacts to the Acuvue Oasys lenses at the
urging of my optometrist. I am also experiencing similar symptoms as you all have
stated. The first week went well, the contacts seemed comfortable. But now every
time i put the contacts in my vision seems to blur and then my eyes becomes very
irritated and red. I ended up having to wear my glasses for about 4 days for the
irritation to stop. My eyes became very light sensitive and teared like crazy, similar
feeling to tearing the cornea(which i have done before). I have tried putting in a brand
new pair and after a few hours the same result. I am happy to see there are others
out there experiencing similar reactions and i will try switching cleansers. Hopefully that will solve the problem. My eyes still have the red veins running through them too…doesn’t seem to want to clear up.
The switch to a peroxide-based cleaner really made the difference for me when I started using Oasys contacts.
I had been using Acuvue 2 and any mulipurpose solution I could get without any problems, other than evening dryness. My optometrist suggested Oasys, which were super comfortable for the first few weeks. Then I started having discomfort when inserting them, with burning, and a feeling like the lens were sticking to my cornea. They would in fact not “slide” around like their supposed to, for the first 1-2 hours.
The key here is that when I starting using Oasys the doc gave me a one week sampler of Ever Clean, a peroxide cleaner. Since I still had a few bottles of mulipurpose, when the Ever Clean ran out i went back to opti-free, and about 1 week after that the problems began. When my doctor gave me another Ever Clean sample, the problem went away almost immediately.
The optometrist explained that the subtle differences in people’s tear chemistry, along with the different formulations of solutions interacting with silicone hydrogel. can make a big difference in comfort.
Just thought i would leave some information for everybody experiencing problems
with the Acuvue Oasys contacts. I ended up going back to the optometrist to have
my red veiny eyes checked. Turns out that the veins and redness were due to lack of oxygen which is really wierd since these contacts are supposed to let through more oxygen then other lenses. I had previously worn daily wear contacts for 24 years prior to this switch and had no problems. So now i am keeping my contacts out for at least a week and doing steroid/antibiotic drops. I will go back to the doctor in a week to make sure my eyes are totally healed. Then we will retry the Oasys lense using the peroxide type cleanser. i previously had used REPLENISH. The doctor thinks maybe the REPLENISH just wasn’t getting the protein deposits off my lenses which then caused the lack of oxygen to my eyes. So if any of you are experiencing this you need to wait AT LEAST A WEEK before putting contacts back in so that your eyes are totally healed. Then try the peroxide type cleanser. I will let you all know how my results are next week…hoping this will do the trick.
i went to an ophthalmologist two weeks ago and he said i have inflammation of the eyes. i have also been given steriod/antibiotic drops (FML) to use for 2 weeks and rest for another week. i’ll be meeting him again next week to see the results. i don’t see much changes so far…ive finished with the drops and my eyes still have red veins..sighh..
a family’s friend (optometrist) told me to try oasys again but with Clear Care this time. *hopefully* Clear Care will do the trick! =)
Oh thank goodness I found this. I thought I was losing my mind.
I’ve had nothing but problems with these since I started wearing them. The eye doc Rx’ed these last year at my eye appt and pretty much right away I started having really red dry eyes. I’ve worn contacts (Acuvue 2 mostly)since I was 14 and have never had any issues. Because I got pg about the same time as I got the new lenses, the redness, dryness and irratation was attributed to hormones. But here it is, 2 1/2 months after I had my baby and I’m still having issues.
I will have my husband go pick up some of the other cleaner until I can get to the eye doctor.
Thanks so much for posting this….like the previous commenter, I thought I was going crazy. The lenses were incredible the first week or so and then suddenly my eyes itched, the lenses dried out in my eyes, and my vision got blurrier (my latest prescription was a relatively big jump to something stronger….but with the Oaysis lenses it was quickly blurrier than the outdated script). They also didn’t last 2-weeks at all…within days they were too unbearable to wear.
That said, using the hydrogen peroxide daily made a big difference….my eyes were less red and I didn’t feel like I needed an entire bottle of eye drops to get through the day (although my vision was still slightly out of focus). So anyone who is stuck with a box of these lenses or has to wait a few days until getting in to the optometrist’s should try the hydrogen peroxide.
I’ve since revisited the eye doc and am trying out Focus Dailies (I used to use Acuvue Advance, which were MUCH more comfortable long-term than the Oaysis for me). My optometrist also rechecked my prescription and it hadn’t changed…it really was the lenses wigging out with my eyes. I think these lenses can be great for some people, but not for others (and for some of us, triggers an allergic response)….it’s all a matter of finding the best personal fit.
I also have been a victim of the Oasys contact lenses. My eye Dr. put me in them in April of 2006, after wearing Acuvue Advance for a couple of years. He encouraged me to try them, they were the “new” contacts out there and were to be more comfortable. Shortly after getting them, I was treated for what we thought was conjunctivitis because of having itchy, red eyes with mucousy discharge only at night. Then, strangely at age 41 I started to have Rosacea symptoms and was treated for that, too (Dermatologist appt and a daily Metrogel cream to apply facially) I continued to have itchy, red eyes and discharge despite antibiotic drop treatment. Of course, I changed into new contacts, case, and new makeup. The problem never really went away, just some days were better than others. Mainly after switching to a new pair of contacts. I went back to my eye Dr. several times for the discharge and discomfort and even had 2 annual exams over the next 1 3/4 year. He eventually put me on Zylet eye gtts (Steroid plus antibiotic) for me to use temporarily for a few weeks at a time. I would wean off of the gtts and/or switch to new contacts and was able to tolerate my contacts for about a week at a time before needing the drops again. In May of this year, my last exam with this Dr., I even asked if it could be the Oasys contacts due to the time frame that this all started when I started wearing them. He said No, of course. My discomfort gradually became so bad that I couldn’t see sometimes. I had developed GPC so bad that my upper lid had blistery bumps and bright red inflammation on the inside. My upper lids even felt thick. The blisters secreted protein/mucous discharge that blurred and further irritated my eyes. The bumpiness pushed my contacts off center of my eye causing me to not be able to see (I would see prisms at times when the edges were directly over my pupil!) Sometimes when I blinked it felt like the contact was folding up. To have the contact not sit properly on the eye very uncomfortable. Sometimes I had to push on my upper lid to literally push the contact back into proper position in order to see if it happened when I was driving. As it was getting this bad…..I began to search on line to see if others were having problems, too. Thank God for this blog!!! I immediately switched back to Acuvue Advances and had immediate relief and could ’see’ again! I went to another eye Dr. who diagnosed me immediatly just by listening to my story. He took a look at the inside of my upper lid and saw that I had a really bad case of GPC, and inflammatory response! My new Dr. couldn’t believe that I had been on Zylet gtts for over 1 year! I stopped that immediately. I had to be contact free and use Lotemax eye gtts 3-4 times/daily until it is gone. I hate to wear my glasses, so this was tortutous! It has been 6 weeks now and I still have a few bumps left, but can now wear Bausch and Lomb (totally different silicone) and use gtts only twice daily. I don’t feel the bumps that are still there. And my Rosacea is gone now too! That also is from an inflammatory response! I wonder “what” was causing the inflammation?!?! I get angry when I think about all of the Dr. bills, medications, new makeups, contacts, and discomfort that I put up with for the past 2 years…..I hope that by placing this response to your blog, it will help others, as it did for me….Thanks
I am so glad I found this blog on Acuvue Oasys. I can relate to many of the comments already posted.
I wore Acuvue 2 contacts for many years with no problems and minimal expense for contact solution. They were a little dry sometimes, but not unbearable. Several months ago I thought I would try Oasys since they were advertised to be more comfortable. I think instead of Hydraclear they have Hydrablur.
At first they seemed ok and I could wear them for a few days. However, after getting bumps on the back of my left eyelid, prescriptions for two different types of antibiotic/steroid drops to clear up the bumps, four doctor visits, minimal wearing now with blurriness and mattery discharge (after sleeping with them only one night), I am fed up with them.
I can only wear them a couple days and my left eye gets mattery while sleeping (even with Aquify drops before going to sleep and when waking up) I resorted to only wearing them one day to use them up. Now my left eye hurts again and I fear the bumps are back. So I am back to wearing glasses until my eye feels better. I got the story about how different lenses and the protein in tears can cause some buildup and about using the cleanser after wearing them for seven days. I thought to myself, these are disposable lenses. I don’t want to spend money on cleaners and eye drops. So I am now trying the Acuvue 1-day lenses. I will see how they work for me and post another comment with my results.
What a coincidence I did a Google and found this site! I’m 46, and new to contacts. I’ve been having discomfort with the Oasys I got about 5 weeks ago, and they seem to dry quickly, but I really don’t have anything to compare them to. My eye doc is pretty good, but just thia AM I asked him about switching and he just doesn’t think it’s the lenses. I was at Wal-Mart afterwards, and saw the Clear Care, and thought it might be worth a try. My contacts are soaking in it now. Is it hard to get your eye doc to try a different lens? If this doesn’t work, I think that’s what I want to do. I’m experiencing blur too, but that might be because I’m not adjusting to the mono-vision yet. I just hate to wear glasses all the time, but don’t want to harm my eyes! Also, when they talk about not mixing solutions, does that include soaking a lens in one solution, and later, after wearing it, using another one? Or do they just mean don’t mix them together?
In response to Cindy E.-i think they mean not to rinse with one solution and then store with another, unless you rinse with SALINE really good inbetween. I frequently switch around the cleansers but always rinse the contacts well with saline so not to get any funky chemical reactions. Seems like i can use the REPLENISH or RENEW cleanser as long as i put the SUPRA CLEANS drops in also then my Oasys contacts seem ok but i use the CLEAR CARE too and found that rubbing with a good rub type cleanser and then rinsing with saline prior to storing in the above mentioned cleansers seems to help make the Oasys somewhat more bearable…seems like i am still having a hard time getting 2 weeks out of these lenses…so i am just going to use these up and decided to go back to my old brand of CIBASOFT VISITINT LENSES. I wonder if these eye docs are getting some kind of kick back recommending these lenses? I have wore contacts for 25 years
without any problems and then as soon as the doctor pushed me into these Oasys, the problems started. My doctors seemed a bit apprehensive about giving a different prescription too but with a little insistants on my part, i got what i wanted.
Yeah, I don’t know why the eye docs are so insistent on staying with these things. I thought maybe it was just me, since I’m new to this! Another problem I have is making sure they are not inside-out! They are very clean today. So far the right one feels good. The left one keeps wanting to fold up and cling to itself like a piece of Saran Wrap or something, and I just opened it yesterday. It is very irritating in my eye, too. I’m about to throw it away, might be something wrong with it that I can’t see, it did that yesterday, too. So, all contacts don’t do this? It would be a shame if I had given up, just because the contacts are crappy. I definitely know now that I want to try another brand before giving up on wearing contacts, if I get to that point. I don’t hate glasses, but they are a nuisance at times, and I feel like I look younger w/o them. I’m hard on them too, because I seem to always hit them on things, or accidentally yank them off my face.
Cindy-not all contacts are as bad as these Oasys…so don’t give up. The same thing just happened to my sister in law. She just tried contacts for the first time and her doc prescribed these Oasys…she has had nothing but problems too…eyes red and irritated all the time. She was ready to give up wearing contacts and just go back to glasses. And then i just happened to mention to her all the problems i was having with these contacts and we soon discovered we aren’t the only ones. I still am noticing problems with my eyes and am starting to get a bit worried. Seems like my vision in my good eye is deteriorating and this is the eye that seems more irritated by the lenses. So i hope there isn’t something funky with these lenses that can cause permanent eye damage…i notice the red veins still haven’t gone away completely…they do look better but still not the way they were. If the blurring continues even with my glasses i think i am going to have to make another doc appointment. My doc had me try Acuvue 2 and O2 Optix…the O2 Optix didn’t seem any better than the Oasys…the ACUVUE 2 were more comfortable to me. It is hard with the Oasys to tell when the contact is inside out…i can’t see well enough to see the 123…but i always figure if the contact doesn’t
feel comfortable as soon as you put it in it is probably inside out or there could be something on the lense. So rinse it and retry and if that doesn’t work try flipping it inside out and try again and see if it is more comfortable. I wanted to notify Acuvue about all the problems with their lenses but couldn’t find any way to contact them on their site….i sure hope these contacts aren’ t causing eye injuries.
I went to their site, and here is how they say to contact them. http://www.jnjvision.com/contact_us.htm Looks like there is an e-mail form you can fill out. Let me know if you have any luck, I might also contact them, especially if you think it would help. My eyes do seem to feel better today with the Clear Care, so I’m feeling a bit more hopeful. The only time I had much redness was the 1st day I wore them, which is kinda surprising, because my eyes tend to get red easily from being outdoors. The 2nd day, big mistake- I didn’t realize I should only use eye drops made for contacts. I used Visine for allergy eyes, and that caused lots of irritation and watering! I was really worried that I had damaged my eye, and it was on the weekend, so couldn’t call the eye doc. I really have done well, considering I used to be extremely squeamish about messing with my eyes. I just get frustrated sometimes, I don’t like the blurring or discomfort! What kind of contacts (correction) do you have? I mainly wanted to be able to read things w/o glasses, like when I go to the store, read the paper, menus, recipes, etc. My vision is not too bad, except for that (old eyes, short arms…lol), I’m just slightly far sighted. So right now I am doing the monovision, but I am wondering about bifocal lenses, too. I wanted to go the cheaper route first, to see how I dealt with contacts.
Hi Cindy-E, use preservative-free eyedrops for your eyes when you have your contacts in because some eyedrops might react with your contact lenses. =)
i havent replied in 3 months now. my red veins in the eye still exist (started from feb 2008). the ophthalmologist prescribed me with two antibiotics drops and they made my red veins a little worse and he said its because of the preservatives inside the drops. so he told me to use preservative-free lubricating drops when my eyes feel irritated. i didnt wear contact lenses for 3 months. however, last week cause of the sunny day, i changed to my daily contact lenses for a day. oh my, that night my eyes were red! more red veins came out!
i have a feeling i might be intolerant to contact lenses. but my optometrist said it might be the fitting of the lenses…so hopefully its not my eyes but the lenses!
i hate oasys lenses. all the optometrist say oasys is really good, sigh!
a family friend (an optometrist) recommends me to try 1-day Acuvue Moist or Dailies AquaComfortPlus.
Cindy, if you dont wear contact lenses all the time, try daily disposable ones. i know they are more expensive but if you dont wear them everyday, then its worth it. i use to wear 2 week ones and i use to think, i got to wear them everyday or else its not worth it!! haha good luck! and i hope ull find the perfect lenses!
I think in the long run, daily disposables could work out, especially if I did bifocal ones. I’d save $ on solutions and stuff. With this monovision, I’m not sure if that would work. I work 4 10 hr days, and I use glasses at work, so really, I’d mostly wear the contacts on the other 3 days. But I don’t know if my eyes would ever get fully trained to the monovision if I didn’t wear them most days. I was just wearing one in the left eye. But yesterday, he decided we should try something in the right eye, too. So far that is working a bit better, not as blurry.
Just thought I would give an update. I am wearing the Acuvue Moist 1-day lenses and so far, so good. To be cautious though, I am alternating one day with glasses and the next day with the contacts. Eventually I hope to wear them daily, as intended.
So, at this point, I am not spending any money on cleansers. I only need minimal amount of saline solution if the lens is inside out and I need to flip it over. 99% of the time, the lens is in the right position when taking it out of the package. I would think Acuvue should check their machines for occasional lens flipping.
I refuse to spend money on cleansers for disposable lenses. I did that years ago in the pre-disposable contact era. When my optometrist suggested cleaning the Acuvue Oasys after 7 days, I told her for me I felt like that was going backwards.
With Acuvue 2, I got two weeks use out of them and could sleep in them with none of the complications that Acuvue Oasys gave me. I think I will email them.
Hi All,
I have been battling with the SAME problem. I wore Acuvue2 for over 10 years, no issues. After a year on Acuvue Oasys, I couldn’t take it anymore. I had visited my optometrist 3 times, all with the same answers all of you gave. . that I was doing something wrong. Well, after 3 rounds of very strong steroid drops I asked my family doctor to refer me to an opthomologist. He put me on Restasis therapy. Thanks to those contacts, I’ll be on Restasis for life for dry-eye— a condition that typically occurs in older people. I’m 26 by the way. I also use perservative free everything and no more contacts for me. I’ve been strictly told “glasses” only for nearly a year. I too am going to try Clear Care and Aquify and hope for the best. If you use Acuvue Oasys and currently experience no problems, stop using them NOW. Before it’s too late. Restasis is a brand name drug and is extremely expensive. Had I waited longer, I would have done permanent damage to my eyes. As it was, it has taken nearly 6 months for my eyes to heal from the damage. Let’s hope Clear Car and Aquify can allow me to wear contacts every once in a while. I leave for Mexico in 2 weeks, having booked the trip months ago, not realizing I would STILL be in glasses. Awful contact lenses!!!