UK Contact Lenses

1 Day Acuvue Moist

    For the past two years, I've worn Ciba Vision's Focus Dailies single-use, daily-disposable lenses, and my optometrist just recommended I try Johnson & Johnson Vision Care's new, 1-Day Acuvue Moist lenses. I've worn soft, daily disposable lenses for a few years now, for convenience (to eliminate the need for cleaning and storage) and safety (from minimal contamination from handling and protein buildup). For a week, at my optometrist's design, I wore an Acuvue lense in one eye and a Ciba Vision lense in the other.

I have mixed judgments on the 1-Day Acuvue Moist lenses.

The new 1-Day Acuvue Moist lenses do work well with regard to the one attribute that matters most to me: comfort. They are, indeed, more comfortable than my existing Focus Dailies, although my optometrist estimated that around 50% of his patients perceive them as an improvement over other lenses and the other 50% detect no difference. By "comfortable," I mean two things: (1) the Ciba lense was more palpably more noticeable in my eye and more irritable if dust were beneath it ? relative to the Acuvue lense and (2) the Acuvue lense was noticeably less dry at night.

However, and this is a bit difficult to describe although the 1-Day Acuvue Moist lenses are less noticeable in the eye and dry out less towards the end of the day, I am experiencing the sensation that my eyes are getting slightly less oxygen throughout the day. I'm speculating that this perception is because the Acuvue lenses are 58% water content, whereas the Focus Dailies are 69% water content. Two other drawbacks are (1) delicacy and (2) cost.

Likely due to the technology that makes the lenses "moist," the 1-Day Acuvue Moists collapse or fold more easily when handling (less rigid) than the Focus Dailies and are slightly more susceptible to dislodgement, for example, if you rub your eye.

On balance, comfort is important enough to me and the increased overall comfort was enough that I'm making the switch from the Focus Dailies to the 1-Day Acuvue Moist lenses. To his credit, my optometrist left the decision to me and actually counseled against a switch unless I noticed a significant difference.