Pros: Overall, very comfortable even wearing them overnight; stays clear longer
Cons: Not quite as sharp; more expensive; no tinting; takes a bit to settle in
The Bottom Line: They worked much better the second time around! Comfortable all day and 20/20, with the option to occasionally wear them overnight even for a -10.00.
in September 2002, I wrote the review below. A change of employers led to a change in vision plans which necessitated a change in optometrist. My new optometrist, despite the fact that I had tried Night & Day before and hated them, insisted on trying them again, because of their excellent oxygen permeability. She considered this important to my eye health, because my strong prescription requires a thick lens which can lead to oxygen deprivation.
Well, I was right. They were even fuzzier than last time -- I could barely read the 20/50 line on the eye chart! But the doctor explained that the Night & Day, more than any other lenses she'd prescribed, were highly sensitive to getting the correct base curve. So she gave me a different one. Boy, what a difference! 20/20.
She sent me home with the Night & Day in one eye and Proclear Compatibles in the other. Over the next week and a half I switched them back and forth to compare them. (I have the same prescription in both eyes.) What I found was that first, the Proclear was initially much more comfortable when I first put them in. The Night & Day is a stiffer lens and was slightly irritating for about ten minutes. But after that, the Night & Day settled in and felt great. This adjustment period got shorter as the days went on and now it just takes a minute. As the day went on, the Night & Day stayed comfortable, while the Proclear got that sticky late-day-contact feeling. Night & Day seems to resist the accumulation of deposits far better than the Proclear and for that matter the Acuvue 2 I was using before.
The real test came when I slept with both lenses in. In the morning, the Night & Day just needed rewetting and was ready to go. The Proclear was stuck to my eyeball and required multiple rewettings before I could get it out! My optometrist says because of the thickness of my prescription, I should take them out every night most of the time, but it was a useful experiment.
The Proclear gave slightly sharper vision at first, but as the day went on, the Night & Day's superior ability to reject foreign matter kept it clear. I didn't have to blink as much to clear the Night & Day, and the Proclear's sharpness deteriorated noticeably by lunchtime. Since the Night & Day did give me 20/20, I felt the slightly sharper vision of the Proclears was did not justify their other shortcomings.
I did get a chance to try these lenses for night driving. Both give off a good amount of flare when a light (such as a headlight) is pointed directly at you, and there was a slight halo around most bright lights. The Night & Day weren't any worse than the Proclears in this regard, contrary to my 2002 experience. And my glasses do the same thing since the anti-glare coating got scratched and I had to have it polished off. I didn't have a chance to compare them to the Acuvue 2 I had before, since I'm out of those. In any case it was tolerable and I could see fine to drive.
One downside to the Night & Day lenses is that they are not tinted a slight blue like the Acuvue and the Proclear (and many other lenses). This makes them much harder to see if you drop one in the sink, especially if you have vision as bad as mine! Guess I'll just have to be more careful.
I have no idea whether Ciba Vision added another base curve that wasn't available in 2002, or changed the lenses in some other way -- or whether my last optometrist was just incompetent. (Well, that may be harsh. The lenses were new in 2002 and no doctor had any experience with them.) In any case, I'm glad I gave them another try, and I've just ordered a year's supply.
Compared to the Acuvue 2 I was wearing before, the Night & Day is pretty expensive, but my vision plan picked up half the cost, so I'm out of pocket only $100 for the year's worth (12 pairs). (The Acuvue 2 would have cost about $50 for a year after my $105 VSP contact lens allowance, and you get four times as many lenses since you change them every week! Obviously the pricing of these lenses has nothing to do with cost of manufacturing.)
My original review follows for reference:
In the past, my optometrist declined to recommend an extended wear lens for me; the strength of my prescription (-10.00) requires a fairly thick lens, which means that less air gets through to the cornea. At my last exam, though, my doctor told me about the Night & Day lenses, and we decided to give them a try.
When I first put them in I was astonished at how comfortable they were. The "fresh contact lens feeling" lasted throughout most of the first day. But I noticed pretty quickly that my vision, despite the fact that I could read the 20/20 line on the eye chart, was just not as sharp as it was with the lenses I'd had previously (Acuvue 2) or even my glasses. This was quite distracting; I kept blinking trying to clear my vision, but it didn't help. Pinpoint light sources had a halo around them, and since a computer screen is basically millions of pinpoint light sources, I also found it difficult to read the computer screen. I'm a technical writer and affirmed computer nerd, so this presented a problem. I got somewhat more acclimated to this over the week I wore the lenses, but didn't quite get to the point where I was actually happy with the sharpness of my vision. I actually thought the doctor had got my prescription wrong, but he explained that the prescription was correct and the focus on these lenses was just a little "softer" than the Acuvue, and proved it with the eye chart. (Would have been nice if he'd mentioned that before I tried the lenses!)
I might have been willing to give the acclimation process a little longer, except I found they got quite uncomfortable after about three days. If I was going to have to take the lenses out every few days anyway, I might as well just go with the Acuvue 2, which is a lot sharper -- and cheaper too. So the Night & Day is not quite the holy grail I had hoped it would be, and I'm back to my old reliable.
Focus Night & Day is a revolutionary lens that offers up to thirty days of continuous, natural vision eliminating the need for daily removal and clean...More at Lens.com
Focus Night & Day contact lenses by CIBA Vision. These are the first ever extended wear contact lenses designed for up to 30 days of continuous wear. ...More at Vision Direct
Focus Night & Day is a revolutionary lens that offers up to thirty days of continuous, natural vision eliminating the need for daily removal and clean...More at 1800-GET-LENS
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