i am glad i read this article. since i got my new prescription on air optix aqua my eyes have gotten so irratated and painful tha finally i decided to stop using them. at the beginning i though it was a matter of adjustment but i realize that i am allergic to them. very painful experience
I'm glad to know it's not just me...My eyes react horribly to these contact lenses. After day two, my eyes crust over during the night and then I get sores under my upper eyelid which has to be treated with a steroid drop. These are horrible lenses and I don't know how they're still on the market.
I found that it depended on where the lenses were manufactured. I can only wear the air optix manufactured Indonesia. I am not allergic to those. I can not wear them if they were not manufactured anywhere else. I get the same allergic reaction.
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Contact lens wearer for 35 years, since I was 20. Also have had recent Air Optix reaction. It had been my multi focal of choice for several years. I can tie my problems to the most recent batch I bought in April of 2017. Heavy mucous discharge during the day, had to take lens out and rinse multiple times a day. Crusty discharge overnight. It was hard to tie it to my lens as I also have seasonal allergies, so had symptoms in both eyes during a particularly bad allergy season in 2017. But I only wear in one eye and my non-lens eye wasn’t having issues once winter came around. At the advice of my eye doctor I tried a couple of combinations of new solutions to no avail. We tried some other lens options, daily wear won and I just switched to another Alcon lens - Total 1. Pricy, but very comfortable again. Just confirmed the issue for myself. Having gone through my samples, I had to put another Air Optix in today to tide me over until my new lenses are delivered - by midday, the heavy mucous discharge was back again. IMO there is no question something was changed and it is causing an allergic reaction for me.
I have actually experienced the same issue! I thought I was going crazy. I got the goop in my eyes and I thought maybe I had an eye infection. I thought it could be from my makeup so I threw out all of my makeup and my makeup was from Sephora, so it was definitely expensive and I was sad but I wanted to make sure that I checked all possible solutions but it was not the makeup because the problem continued. It would be maybe 4 days to a week and I would have to throw the contacts out. I went through 4 boxes each eye so 8 boxes total of contacts in less than a year because of this issue. It was not cheap at all. I felt so gross because the goop would go to the corner of my eye and I would wipe it out but it would crust overnight and I would have to wear my glasses the next day. I wore my glasses a lot because I just could not deal with this issue any longer. I did not have an eye infection either. I do have allergies so I take Zyrtec every night before bed and always have, then I take Benadryl when I am near cats because I am allergic so I thought maybe this could be it. It was not the case because it would happen even if I had not been around cats at all. I recently went to the eye doctor for my visit and found out that hundreds of people have experience this problem. She actually reached out to the company themselves and they state that nothing has changed in the ingredients but that can not be true and something had to of changed either in the ingredients or in the plant that they were manufactured. I am so glad that I am not crazy and tons of people are with me. The company actually wanted her to file a list of all the names of the people and experience the problem but she had hundreds and hundreds of patients. You are not alone. This is not okay DO NOT continue using these contacts.
I am glad that I came across your post! My sister and I have both experienced allergic reactions to our Air Optix. We both have been long time contact lense users and are very certain that it is the lense material that we are reacting to. My sister asked her optometrist about it and he said more and more of his patients are experiencing allergies to this brand, mostly over the recent year or so. We both reverted back to Acuvue Oasis and are doing fine. We wonder if the manufacturer changed the lense material recently. Something for other physicians to consider and be mindful of when writing scripts.
I don't wear contacts any more, but when my doctor wanted to switch me from Acuvue Oasys to Air Optix, I had the same reaction. I always thought the Acuvues were very comfortable but every time I tried Air Optix by the third day of wearing them my eyes were so irritated I'd have to go without contacts altogether for several days to recover. Try different brands.
There are many reasons why contacts are uncomfortable. Allergy to the lens material is not a common cause. Much more likely is the shape or sensitivity of your eye or how dry they are. If contact lens are important try other types or consider just glasses or refractive surgery like lasik