Understanding Your Contact Lens Prescription
In order for you to purchase contact lenses, you must have a current contact lens prescription from your eye care practitioner. If you plan to purchase your contacts from a vendor other than your practitioner it is a good idea for you to understand how to read and interpret your prescription to ensure that you receive the correct product.
Why do I need a prescription?
Contact lenses are considered medical devices and they require monitoring by an eye care practitioner. While the risk associated with wearing contacts is small, it is important that practitioners are able to quickly diagnosis and treat any complications occur to prevent vision loss.
How to I obtain a copy of my prescription?
Your eye care practitioner will provide you with a copy of your prescription once your contact lens fitting is complete, and you have paid for the fitting. You may be required by your practitioner to attend a follow up visit after you have worn the lenses for a period of time before your final contact lens prescription is determined.
While a contact lens fitting may be conducted during the same office visit as your eye exam, the exam provides an analysis of your visual and eye health while the contact lens fitting takes additional measurements of your eyes and offers a more extensive evaluation of your corneal health.
Why does my prescription expire?
While requirements may vary from state to state, most contact lens prescriptions expire one year from the date of issue. This time limit is applied to prescriptions so that eye care practitioners are able to see contact lens wearing patients regularly to ensure that they are able to pick up on small changes and/or problems in your eyes or vision.
Since a contact is viewed as a foreign object by your body, contact lens wearer’s are at an increased risk for serious eye problems. Additionally, changes in your health, medications and environment can affect how your contacts interact with your eyes so an annual eye exam and contact lenses fitting are needed to ensure that you receiving the best vision correction.
What is included on my prescription?
- Your name
- Examination date
- Prescription issue Date
- Prescription expiration Date
- Name, address, phone number and fax number of prescriber
- Power
- Material and/or manufacturer of the prescribed lenses
- Base curve or appropriate designation of the prescribed contact lenses
- Diameter of the prescribed contact lenses (if appropriate)
- For private label contact lenses, the name of the manufacturer, trade name of the private label brand and trade name of equivalent brand name (if applicable)
The Federal Trade Commission Contact Lens Rule
The Federal Trade Commission defines regulations for contact lens prescriptions such as what information needs to be included on the script and enforces the requirement that eye care practitioners provide patients with a copy of their prescriptions.
Although you must obtain a valid prescription from your eye care practitioner each calendar year, you are under no obligation to purchase your contact lenses from the practitioner. Once you receive a copy of your contact lens prescription, you will be able to purchase your contacts from the vendor of your choice. Additionally, if your practitioner prescribed private label lens, which can be more expensive, the vendor that you purchase from can substitute a trade name equivalent that is produced by the same manufacturer. To learn more about the type of contact lenses you have been prescribed, check out the Contact Lens Types article.
If you have already obtained your contact prescription from your eye care practitioner and are ready to place an order, please visit the Contact Category page to find the lenses of your choice.