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Posts Tagged ‘Biofinity’

Biofinity Contact Lens Review

David Langford, O.D. on April 17th, 2010 under Optoblog, Reviews •  29 Comments

Since “Biofinity” and “Biofinity contact lens review” are the most frequently searched terms leading to my website, I thought I would give everyone my view of the Biofinity contact lens.
Biofinity Contact Lens Box
Its technical specs can be found at the Coopervision website. Silicone hyrdrogel lenses (the super breathable class of contacts) have been on the market for years, but Coopervision came to the game after Ciba, Bausch & Lomb, and Vistakon. All the latter use a special coating on the surface to make the silicone material wettable for your eye, but Coopervision’s unique Biofinity material is wettable throughout the matrix of the material.

It’s a one month lens, which is convenient for most people to remember when to toss their now old lenses which will soon become cesspools ripe for eye infections. The reason is because they build up deposits, like this:

B&L and CL Spectrum photos

Replace your contacts on schedule!!!

Lots of lenses are only two week and toss lenses, but Biofinity is resistant to deposits enough to allow it to be a one month lens. Official and approved.

Biofinity also got an FDA indication for extended wear. In other words, if your doctor thinks your eyes can handle it, Biofinity can be worn one week straight, take it out, clean it, soak it overnight, and then repeat.

Now, I’ve tried this, and while it was totally doable, for me it’s not as comfortable for extended wear compared to Ciba’s Night & Day (by the way, I refuse to call it Air Optix Night & Day Aqua because that is just waaaaaaaay too long a name for a contact lens.) But guess what. That’s just me. Maybe for you it could be fine. However, almost every patient I’ve tried this with comes back a week or two later and says they would rather be Rx’d Night & Day if extended wear was their approved goal.

If you’re just interested in daily wear (taking out every night) or if price is the main consideration, then Biofinity wins over Night & Day because it’s only around $50 per box of 6 lenses rather than Night and Day at ~$70 per box of six. Another consideration is that you can now get Air Optix Aqua (regular, NOT Night & Day) for ~$47 per box. My only beef with that is that it’s basically the same lens as O2Optix which was released as a two week lens, so I’m not sure whether to believe that Ciba wants you to wear a 4 week lens for two weeks or a two week lens for four weeks.

Comfort-wise, it seems to me that the percentage of patients that like the comfort of the Biofinity is about the same percentage of people that like the feel of O2Optix. Now, the only thing is, both those percentages are less compared to Acuvue Oasys comfort. But consider that a year supply of Acuvue Oasys (a 2 week lens) is about ~$272 while Biofinity is around $200.

Biofinity has a great toric lens in case you have low to moderate amounts of astigmatism (0.75-2.50) in one or both eyes. For mild amounts of astigmatism (0.25-0.50 and maybe 0.75), its aspheric optics help mask it for clearer vision compared to contacts without aspheric optics.

Anyway, my advice is to just try it out. If you like it, buy it. If not, try something else. That’s how I roll. I alternate between wearing Biofinity, Acuvue Oasys, and Night & Day. Mostly Night & Day. But hey, I’ve been wearing contact lenses so long that you could poke me in the eye, and I’d barely feel it. But seriously, I think I have significant corneal hypoesthesia which allows me to tolerate pretty much any lens that gets pushed out into the contact lens market.

Another consideration for you is the compatibility of lens material to your desired contact lens solution system. Some lenses can only tolerate the most expensive solutions. The Biofinity material is pretty much compatible with even the most cheapest of house brand multi-purpose solutions. On average. Your eyes may vary.

I think Biofinity is a quality lens, but take it home along with your Oasys and Night & Day or O2Optix and see which one works best at which price for you.

There, does that answer your question?

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Answers to Your Search Questions – Part 2

David Langford, O.D. on February 4th, 2009 under Optoblog •  2 Comments

In my first edition of Answers to Your Search Questions – Part 1, I answered 20 questions…as a public service. I’m at it again in Part 2. Again the idea is that people have come to my site from a web search, looking for answers. I am now going to explicitly answer them (explicitly as in specifically and openly-not the other way you were thinking about).

  1. “Biofinity contacts” – Okay, I made a huge mistake by thinking that someone was out to get Biofinity, and I’ve never been able to live it down. It’s by far the most hit blog entry on my site. Big egg on my face. I should take the post down, but I hear that’s bad form, so I just made another post retracting my error. Please, let’s just put all this behind us. It’s not like I forgot to pay $130K in taxes or something (oh, wait, that’s rewarded in this country).
  2. “optometrist blog” and “optometry blog” – Nothing to say here. I don’t even have one snarky comment.
  3. “can you get rich working as a walmart optometrist” – No, but to be fair, you can’t get rich being any kind of optometrist.
  4. “getting around vsp at walmart” – I find it hard to believe an optometrist would want to be this unethical; however, you could try getting paneled to VSP at a private practice. Then advise VSP that you need to update the practice location address (to your Walmart location but you don’t say that). Eventually they will discover your deceit when they figure out that you aren’t selling any eyewear, but at least you stuck it to them for a little while. You should also do the same for EyeMed. Then you should go rob a bank and kidnap someone for ransom.
  5. “2008 better than oasys contact lenses biofinity” – I would say that in the year 2008 Acuvue Oasys sold more pairs than Biofinity, so you could make an argument that it’s better. On the other hand, Biofinity just came out with 1 week extended wear and it’s a one month lens whereas in the U.S., Oasys is a two week lens, so Biofinity comes out on top for cost-effectiveness. I would say try them both and see what you think. Ask your eye doctor if extended wear is right for your eyes in these lenses.
  6. “http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/optometrysucks/message/1424” – This isn’t a web search but it does show that someone in that Yahoo group linked to me. I’ve said before that I don’t condone this group, or rather, it’s name. Optometry definitely doesn’t suck. If you aren’t in it, be aware of it’s problems before getting in so that we have less whiners.
  7. “acuvue oasys vs biofinity” – I normally wear Ciba Night and Day, but I’ve tried both of these. I’ve even done Biofinity on extended wear. I like it. Anyway, see above. Ask your eye doctor if extended wear is right for your eyes and contact lens material.
  8. “officemate eyecare software crack” – You know, the yearly fee to keep Officemate up and running is around $1200. I’m sure you could pay some kid less than that to come up with a crack. But then, why stop there? I hear robbing banks and kidnapping for ransom will also help you have more money to spend.
  9. “s codes in optometry and dilation fees” – The last billing expert I heard said that you can’t charge extra for dilation. S codes are awesome. I use them all the time.
  10. “how to make the most out of being optometrist” – Start a blog for your personal therapy. Make sure you get plenty of time away from work. When you get sick and tired of explaining presbyopia or saying “which is better,” then try to imagine what you will be doing after work. You’ll say the same things over and over again so much that you could say them on autopilot, leaving you to think about other stuff, like your next blog entry.
  11. “optometrist wedding favors” – Okay, that’s just weird. Can’t you let them be just a person on their wedding day? Why do you have to remind them of work?
  12. “bad things about being an optometrist” – I think there is a Yahoo groups site about this.
  13. “what do eye doctors think of their jobs” – I can’t speak for everybody, but I like it. There are much worse jobs.
  14. “optometrist lifestyle” – We run around in private planes, eat caviar, and schmooze with celebrities and politicians. When we’re not doing that, we’re working in a dark room, saying the same things over and over.

Okay, that will do. As I collect more data, I’ll be sure to respond in future editions.

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Biofinity now at Wal-Mart

David Langford, O.D. on January 30th, 2008 under Optoblog •  Comments Off on Biofinity now at Wal-Mart

CooperVision’s newest lens, the Biofinity, is now available at Wal-Mart. They’re selling it for something like $49.87 (it’s a one month lens).
I guess my private practice is no longer the exclusive provider of Biofinity in the Cache Valley area.

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Is There a Negative Campaign Against Biofinity?

David Langford, O.D. on September 27th, 2007 under Optoblog •  39 Comments

[Edit: For some reason, this is the most popular page on my site thanks to people searching the internet for mentions of Biofinity. Please be sure to read my other article entitled There is No Biofinity Conspiracy.]
Also, be sure to read my Full Review of the Biofinity Lens!

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.

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