Contact Lens: CIBA Vision Dailies Total 1. How is it?

December 11, 2013 4:16 PM

Anyone tried CIBA Vision Dailies Total 1 contact lens. How is it? Is it easy to remove? (Read stories that it's hard to get it out) Is it for beginners?
posted by Mountain28 to Clothing, Beauty, & Fashion (7 answers total)

Best answer: I occasionally wear CIBA Vision Dailies Toric lenses. I wish I could say whether they are similar to Total 1 or not, but contact lens manufacturers and sellers seem stubbornly resistant to providing any information about lenses aside from the most content-free marketing puff one can imagine. However, if they are similar, I will say that they're pretty easy to deal with. No contact lens is totally satisfactory for me (which is why I only wear them occasionally) but they're as good as anything I've tried. And yes, they're easy to remove.

Actually, I've tried several different types of soft contact lenses over the years, and I've never found any of them to be particularly difficult to remove or particularly different from each other in that regard. You just put your first finger and thumb on the lens and pinch. I've also never heard of any particular lens being "for beginners" or not. Usually optometrists will just recommend whichever lens they personally like best for your type of eyes, and/or whichever one gives them the most kickbacks from the manufacturer. Total 1s are designed to be extra comfortable though (like any contacts don't claim that, let's be real here) which probably is good if you're new to contacts.

Have you talked to your optometrist about it? Usually you need to get your eyes checked out anyway before you can get a prescription for contacts, which you generally need before ordering them. Generally this is the best time to talk to the doctor about different contact types and get their informed advice about which type is likely to suit you best. They're also going to want you to ramp up your usage fairly gradually, starting with just a few hours a day to make sure your eyes can handle it.

This is really a situation where it would probably be helpful to talk to your optometrist. The quality of consumer-available information about contacts is spectacularly poor, and people are very idiosyncratic about what they like. The best you can hope for here is a collection of anecdotes, which is really not going to tell you very much about whether this particular contact is likely to work well for you or not.
posted by Scientist at 5:51 PM on December 11, 2013 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks for sharing your story.

Yes, I went to the optometrist and received a pair of CIBA Vision Dailies Total 1 for trial. The optometrist told me that these lenses are quite slippery.

I read online reviews and most people say its great but hard to remove. I hope I don't end up in the hospital.
posted by Mountain28 at 6:47 PM on December 11, 2013 [1 favorite]

Best answer: My wife tried Total 1s recently after suffering a spell of dry eyes. She tells me that they were extremely comfortable, her eyes lasted hours longer than her usual lenses, and they were no harder to insert/remove than her Ciba Dailies.

I wouldn't worry about the slippery part. Just make sure your fingers are clean and dry.

Oh, and Total 1s are expensive, almost double the price of the Dailies. So be sure you really enjoy them before committing.
posted by JoeZydeco at 6:54 PM on December 11, 2013 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I get the impression that your question/worry is less about this particular contact lens model and more about starting (?) to wear contact lenses in general. Is that the case?

You won't, by the way, end up in the hospital, unless you drop the contact lenses on the floor and slip on them and bang your head. I've been wearing contact lenses for over a decade and I have never been unable to remove them. Even when I've let my eyes dry out horribly and I've had to peel it off my cornea (by the way: don't do that. Use eyedrops if you have to), I've never had issues. Although the time I didn't wash my hands quite thoroughly enough after slicing jalopenos was a little difficult (don't do that either. Wear gloves!), it still came out.

Remember to keep your hands clean (and lint free--one of my towels is really linty and I'm always getting fibers clinging to my fingers after drying them, which is annoying), but dry. Taking them in and out is just something you're going to have to practice, but it will definitely get easier. Can you get them in all right? When removing them, I usually find them (they will center over your pupil, most of the time, and you'll get a sense of where the edge tends to be) and then pinch the edge and the center toward each other, like a fold of cloth. Then I can just pull it away from my eye. If they're new, or you're tearing up a lot, they do tend to be more slippery and this might take another try or two. But you'll be fine.

Contacts are great! It's the closest, most realistic experience you can get to just being able to see like a normal person without surgical help. It's amazing how freeing that can be.
posted by spelunkingplato at 7:13 PM on December 11, 2013

Response by poster: JoeZydeco: Thanks for taking your time to reply and providing tips. Yes, I am aware that these lenses are expensive.

spelunkingplato: Yes, I'm not worried about the lens model. I'm more afraid that it will get stuck in my eyes and unable to get it out for hours. I read another forum where a person with 40 years of experience wearing contacts had trouble getting it out. I wasn't sure if he/she was over exaggerating.

Thanks for your suggestion. I will most likely try wearing these lenses during the weekend.
posted by Mountain28 at 4:00 PM on December 12, 2013

If you really want peace of mind, I'm sure your optometrist wouldn't mind if you tried putting them in and taking them out while in his office.

Daily lenses can certainly be stored in a saline-filled lens cup while you practice.
posted by JoeZydeco at 5:39 PM on December 12, 2013

Response by poster: Ok. Thanks all.
posted by Mountain28 at 7:17 PM on December 12, 2013