I hate wearing glasses. It doesn’t matter how swanky the glasses or how well they suit, I just don’t like how I look in them. At all. I have worn contact lenses since I was about 16. I started back then with these gas permeable lenses – I had to wear them an hour the first day, two hours the second day, etc, until my eyes adjusted to them. Fast forward 20 odd years and the contact lenses are so soft and so comfortable.
In Canada, when it was time to replace my lenses, I would order online (with coupon codes at the ready) and within 48 hours I would have my lenses in my hands. All I needed was a valid credit card, and to know what prescription my eyes were. I took the numbers for the prescription off the last box I had used. I do get regular eye checks – once in two years. My eyes really haven’t changed, though.
So I am hanging out here with the KoD and realize I am out of lenses, and the prices on 1800-Contacts are better than the Canadian prices, so I figure I will order from there. They ask for your doctor’s name and number to check the prescription. As do most if not all of the American sites. So I tried a few other online sites in the USA. They all insist on checking with your eye doctor before filling your order. I actually went ahead and ordered on one of these sites, seeing if they would call my eye doc in Montreal. They did and my prescription is over a year old therefore they are refusing my order and my money.
Just now, I ordered a few months’ worth of contact lenses on the Canadian website (to be delivered to my Canadian address), and not once was I asked to fax my prescription or for contact info for my eye doctor. I wonder why this is. Are there regulations in USA that they cannot dispense contact lenses without a current prescription, or does Canada not care – after all, it’s your own eyes you are putting them in!
Strange.
In the Pink 
As someone who has dealt with bad eyesight their whole life, I can’t express enough how important it is to get a check up with the eye doctor once a year. Even though I have had lasik surgery and 20/20 vision I still go to the eye doctor . So maybe it’s strict that the US companies have this regulation but I think it avoids someone driving with an old prescription and possibly getting into an accident (g-d forbid). As we get older our eyes change, so while this maybe annoying to some, I think it’s necessary for safety’s sake.
And in addition, probably, for the company not getting sued if something were to go wrong.
so why does Canada not care?
As someone who is the head of an academic optometry program, I cannot stress how dangerous it is to wear contact lenses without having appropriate befor and after care. An optometrist must see how the lenses sit in your eyes after you order them. You might think your eyes have not changed, but subtle differences in your cornea and retina can literally be the difference between blindness and light. I know of many cases of people loosing their vision by doing what you do. Please see a proper optometrist.
i think canada’s regulations are more lax than the US when it comes to prescriptions. i recall several yrs ago when my husband suffered from cornea issues & needed a certain medication, we used to buy it in montreal (when we came to visit) b/c it was cheaper & didn’t require a prescription even though it did in the US…i think they are just stricter about these things & it may have to do with preventing lawsuits as someone mentioned above which are much more prevalent in the US than in Canada…
You are definitely right. It further has also to do with the fact that in the US one can sue for much bigger awards than in Canada. Therefore, I’d think, US companies are much more careful to prevent a lawsuit situation in the first place.
My guess it is to protect from lawsuits. They don’t check, though. I once ordered the wrong lens for my right eye (+ rather than -) and didn’t realize until I put one in.
as a related aside: no Rx in the US is valid for more than one year….