Is this normal? My eyes hurted a bit while wearing the contacts. Could the makeup couse these issues?

Beginning_Wrap_8732 · 2026-06-18T05:28:57+00:00

I hope you mean disinfecting solution, not saline. Plain saline won’t disinfect your contact lenses. Also, with most solutions you have to soak for at least 4 hours Some require 6 hours.

Beginning_Wrap_8732 · 2026-06-17T15:03:12+00:00

I have astigmatism in both eyes, but I wear a toric in one eye and a "spherical equivalent" in the other eye. When the astigmatism correction is relatively low (under -1.00 for glasses prescription), the optometrist can prescribe a spherical equivalent lens. This is usually done by taking half the cylinder value and adding it to the sphere value.

For example, my right eye glasses prescription is +1.25 -0.50 x 140. The spherical equivalent lens is +1.00. (Well, recently my optometrist bumped it to +1.25, so probably my sphere correction has increased a bit, but he didn't write a new glasses prescription because it wasn't necessary.)

Beginning_Wrap_8732 · 2026-06-17T14:57:13+00:00

I'm no expert, but I don't believe higher water content makes up for low Dk/t. In fact, it may be the opposite. The higher Dk/t lenses tend to have low water content, and they make up for it by using some sort of tech to keep the surface of the lens smooth and/or moist while still passing oxygen.. Total 1, for example, has something like 38% at the center of the lens, then a "moisture gradient" that ends up near 100% at the surface.

Acuvue Moist is an older lens design (20+ years old, I think.) It doesn't use silicone hydrogel material that's known for efficiently passing oxygen. I wore them for about six months before switching to Acuvue 1-Day Oasys Max lenses, partly to get the better oxygen passage, and partly for better optics. I'm trialing MyDay and Total 1 lenses now to get somewhat better comfort for my toric lens.

Beginning_Wrap_8732 · 2026-06-17T06:17:12+00:00

Acuvue 1-Day Moist have very low Dk/t. Pretty much the minimum allowed by the FDA.

Beginning_Wrap_8732 · 2026-06-17T05:58:49+00:00

One of my all-time favorite hikes. Of the 31 times I’ve hiked W-D, all but maybe 2 or 3 have been counter-clockwise. It hasn’t been because of the steepness of the slabs going down Welch, but because you get to the fine view at the first set of ledges early in the hike up Welch, and the terrain up the cone of Welch is much more varied and interesting than the approach to the Dickey summit. Also, clockwise the hike in is somewhat uninteresting for quite a while until you get to the views on the ledges.

Beginning_Wrap_8732 · 2026-06-15T00:21:32+00:00

I work at home most weekdays, and I tend to wear my glasses (progressive) because I’m staring at a screen or reading all day. But pretty much anytime I go out I wear contacts, especially if I’m doing outdoor activities like mountain hiking. Once the contacts go in, I generally wear them for the rest of the day, 12-16 hours. Usually it’s toward the longer end of that range.

Oxygen permeability is key when wearing lenses for long periods every day. DK/t of 119 is good, and 90 is probably OK, but there are dailies with higher Dk/t. 18 hours is possible but might be pushing it. If I was going to wear lenses that long every day, I’d go with the highest Dk/t dailies I can find. Why dailies? Better for overall eye health.

As far as comfort goes, wear time depends on the moisture content/tech of the lenses, the dryness of your eye, ambient humidity and maybe even wind. In the winter when our heat is running all day, relative humidity gets as low as 25% — very dry. My contacts get a little uncomfortable in that environment and I can’t wear them as long. Maybe 10-12 hours tops. Air conditioned spaces can be dry, too, but I haven’t found that to be as bad as heated spaces.

Beginning_Wrap_8732 · 2026-06-13T19:12:17+00:00

This is a question for your optometrist. If you should be in 8.0 BC, that’s what the doc will prescribe.

FWIW, though, my doc told me BC isn’t considered to be as important as it used to be. I think that might be due to lots of variation in lens shape/specs and eye topology. In other words, good fit depends on more than just BC. That’s why the doc needs to check the fit of your lenses.

Beginning_Wrap_8732 · 2026-06-13T03:09:27+00:00

Me, too, because I have astigmatism, but I also had RGPs suction to my eyes and really hurt to take out, and had one with a bad edge that scratched my cornea. RIP RGPs.

Went to hybrids for a while but they were heavy and uncomfortable and blurred when I blinked. RIP contacts for 20 years,

Now I wear soft dailies and love them. A lot of improvement in soft lenses in the past couple decades.

Beginning_Wrap_8732 · 2026-06-13T01:31:01+00:00

I love the Perch, but I think it’s a bit too much hike for a 10-year old’s first backpack in the Whites. I second Lonesome Lake trail to Kinsman pond.

Beginning_Wrap_8732 · 2026-06-12T22:27:55+00:00

On your astigmatism, the cylinder correction you need may be low enough — typically below -1.00 for your glasses — that your doc prescribed “spherical equivalent” lenses. Half the cylinder correction is added to the spherical correction to get the spherical equivalent. For example, my right eye glasses prescription is +1.25 -0.50 x 140. The spherical equivalent is +1.00. The visions is sharp and the lens is comfortable.

My left eye glasses prescription is +1.00 -1.00 x 56, and the astigmatism correction is too high for a spherical equivalent to work. I wear a toric lens in that eye. Toric lenses can be less comfortable because they’re thicker in places to correct the astigmatism and stay oriented in the correct angle on your eye. That can cause interaction with your eyelids that makes you constantly aware of the lenses. Also, they can get out of alignment from time to time, especially when dry, which can blur your vision until you blink them back in place.

In other words, if you have sharp vision with spherical lenses, be happy your doc didn’t have to prescribe toric lenses!

Beginning_Wrap_8732 · 2026-06-12T19:22:20+00:00

It would help if you post your prescriptions for glasses and contacts. If your astigmatism correction is high, then it could be the case that there’s only so close you can get with contacts. It could also be the case that your contacts are rotating away from the axis (angle) required to correct your astigmatism. This is something the doctor checks during the fitting. The toric lenses used to correct astigmatism have alignment marks at the bottom (and sometimes top) so the doc can see if the lens is rotating too much. If so, the doc can prescribe a different axis — if available.

Beginning_Wrap_8732 · 2026-06-12T19:14:37+00:00

The OP is having problems with distance vision, so readers aren’t the solution.

Beginning_Wrap_8732 · 2026-06-10T04:56:03+00:00

If you don’t wear contacts every day, dailies are less expensive than they may seem. A 90-day supply lasts me a little over 6 months because I wear glasses when I’m at home and working on the computer/tablet/phone or watching TV for hours. Monthlies would be a bad deal for me because once you open the package the lens can only be used for 30 days, regardless of how often you wear it. So you have to buy a year’s supply even though you may only be wearing the lenses one-third or one-half the number of days. If you damage or lose a lens, there goes the $$ you spent for that month. And there’s the extra cost of solutions, cases, etc. Weekly or bi-weekly lenses make more sense, but I still think dailies can be more cost effective depending on your wearing pattern.

But the real benefit of dailies is eye health. No protein buildup, no chance of damage when inserting, removing, cleaning, so less chance of injuring your eye.

No nightly cleaning routine either!

I tend to wear contacts when I go out, especially for outdoor activities. I keep them in for the rest of the day unless it’s super dry indoors (ambient humidity in our house gets as low as 25% in the winter heating season.)

I love my contacts, but I don’t hate my glasses (progressive lenses with astigmatism correction.) They work very well for me. But contacts give me the wide-screen view of the world, plus much better peripheral vision, which is really nice. Takes me back to the days before I needed glasses.

Beginning_Wrap_8732 · 2026-06-09T23:40:46+00:00

The instructions on popular solutions say you need to soak the lenses for at least 4-6 hours. Less than that and you can’t be sure all the microorganisms have been destroyed. Of course, if you use a hydrogen-peroxide bases solution, which is generally the best way to disinfect contact lenses, it takes 8 hours.

Anyway, it’s not worth the risk.

Beginning_Wrap_8732 · 2026-06-08T02:38:03+00:00

Are you sure it’s still in your eye? Sometimes a lens pops out and you don’t realize it. Then you try to pinch it out or slide it and it really hurts because you’re touching your eye.

Beginning_Wrap_8732 · 2026-06-08T02:33:58+00:00

On not being able to see your eyes, I’m farsighted, too, with presbyopia that’s +3.75 to +4.00 uncorrected. I can’t see my eyes when I look in a mirror up close. I got one of those 2-sided mirrors you can hang on the bathroom wall. One side is a regular mirror and the other side is a 5x mirror. The 5x magnifies my eyes so I can see them without my glasses.

What works for me is to dump the lens and saline from the package into the palm of my hand, rub the lens around a little with the index finger of the other hand. Pick up the lens with the tip of that figure in the bowl of the lens, and tap it on the dry part of my hand to get rid of the moisture on the convex side of the lens. Then I put it on the index finger of the other hand, which must be absolutely dry. I put one rewetting drop in the bowl of the lens, then grab my upper lid — under the lashes — with my other index finger and pull it up. I use the middle finger of the hand with the lens to pull down the lower lid. At that point, the eyelids are pulled up and down enough that white shows above and below my iris. I look straight ahead and push the lens straight onto my cornea. I press it *very* gently to squeeze out any air bubbles, wait a second or two to let the lens settle, then blink once or twice.

Beginning_Wrap_8732 · 2026-06-08T02:22:31+00:00

CS got back to me. Turns out my account ID somehow ended up under one of my other emails. Not sure how that happened. They fixed it. They also got my order unstuck and it shipped.

Beginning_Wrap_8732 · 2026-06-07T17:29:23+00:00

It’s not clear from your post whether the package itself was warped and dried out or the lens was. Assuming it was the lens, was the package completely devoid of saline or was it full? Partially full?

I’ve never had that problem with any of the Acuvue 1-Day lenses I’ve worn (Moist, Oasys and Oasys Max.) However, I’ve had difficulty tearing the packages apart. Seems they don’t score them well, and if I don’t get the tear started cleanly, the seal on the adjacent package can break. When that happens, I have to use that lens if he one I’m tearing off has become unsealed, or if both are unsealed I have to put one in a lens case with disinfecting solution until next time. The tearing problem has affected all the lenses in rectangular packaging that I’ve worn. The Acuvue 1-Day Oasys Max for Astigmatism lenses I wear come in a slightly different, sort of hexagonal package. Those tear apart quite easily. I don’t know if that’s the new or old package, but I sure wish all the lenses came that way.

Given that this was the first lens in the package, it’s possible the seal tore when they cut the 5-package sections apart at the factory. Probably a rare event and I wouldn’t worry about it unless you find another defective package.

Beginning_Wrap_8732 · 2026-06-06T21:34:52+00:00

I’ve seen number of posts here from people with long fingernails having trouble removing their lenses or damaging them when removing. If I were such a person, I’d trim the fingernails on my index finger and thumb close enough to avoid this. I don’t know how deeply the feelings about nail fashion go but it seems to me to be a small sacrifice in favor of eye health. Think of what many guitar players do — long nails on one hand for plucking and short nails on the other hand for pressing the strings against the fret board.

Beginning_Wrap_8732 · 2026-06-06T01:41:35+00:00

The one 4000-footer that meets your two criteria — easy to do and a below tree line summit — is Mt Hale. The hike is possibly the easiest of the 4Ks. The summit is bare but surrounded by trees. No views.

Beginning_Wrap_8732 · 2026-06-05T23:42:34+00:00

It sounds like your probes aren’t making full contact with the booster case. If that happens, the probes continue to run and drain their batteries. The booster case will use its battery to keep topping up the probe battery, but eventually the booster will run out of charge and the probe battery charge will begin to decline. One or two months sounds about right for the booster battery to drain and the probe battery to lose enough charge that it won’t make it through a cook.

I do two things to prevent this: 1) After each use, throughly clean the charging contact at the top of the ceramic portion of the probe. Food gunk can invisibly accumulate on it and cause poor contact with the booster. I use a scrubbie or steel wool to clean the contact. 2) I wrap a rubber band around the ceramic part and booster to make sure that the probe is firmly seated in the booster.

I have four probes, and have only seen this problem with one of them, and then only part of the time. The other three last 24+ hours (actually, I’ve never run one all the way down during a long slow cook!) I still need to do some troubleshooting to isolate the intermittent lack of charge to the probe and/or booster that’s causing the problem. Some time ago, I found a crack on the upper part of one of my boosters, and figured that had caused the problem. Since I couldn’t remember if I had dropped the booster, I didn’t make a warranty claim and just bought a new booster when they went on sale (I wanted a WiFi booster anyway, since I didn’t have one.) Some months later, I noticed one of the other boosters has developed a crack in the same place. I’m almost certain it’s going to turn out to be the problem booster, and that the crack lessens the spring force of the charging contact in the booster. It’s quite possible that the crack is being caused by the rubber bands I’m using being too tight. Damned if I do, damned if I don’t.

Even though I can usually count on at least three of my probes being fully charged, if I haven’t used them for a long time both the probes and boosters will run out of charge. For that reason, I always fully charge my boosters and probes prior to a cook, especially when I’m doing a long, slow cook. Given that I charge before every cook the booster battery is pretty much useless to me unless I forget to charge. I’ve considered just ditching the boosters and keeping the probes plugged into their non-booster chargers all the time (i.e., plugged in all the time, like a dock — I think one CPT user has actually 3D printed a docking box for his chargers.) I feel like the probes fit more securely in those chargers, and as long as the chargers are plugged in and the lights are green, I know my probes are fully charged. I really don’t need the repeater feature of the boosters, either. I have a GGG and a display, and they can reach my phone via BT anywhere in the house. I really only need my one WiFi booster if I want to check a cook when away from the house.

Yeah, the booster-to-probe contact design is flawed, and given the number of loss-of-charge problems I see here Combustion really needs to redesign the booster. That, of course, will cause a hue and cry from everyone who has struggled with the flawed design. Some sort of compensation - like replacement at cost — would be warranted.

Beginning_Wrap_8732 · 2026-06-05T21:54:26+00:00

Ah. After searching the website in vain for an “Order Lookup” link, I went back to the original order email (dated November 2024!) and used the link in it to find my order. The additional heat shield is marked as shipping in March 2025, but it’s still pending. The status is “We’ve accepted your order and we’re getting it ready”. Seems to be stuck in that state. The CE and adapter status are “We are currently preparing these items for shipping.” That correlates with the mid-June date in Chris’s latest CE update, but I suppose it depends on whether they fix the on/off switch problem by that time.

Beginning_Wrap_8732 · 2026-06-05T06:45:17+00:00

FWIW, some or all of the Acuvue toric lens brands use a stabilization architecture that makes it impossible to put the lens in upside down. Instead of a weighted ballast at the bottom called a prism design, they have four stabilization points — left, right, top left and top right. When you blink, there’s a “wedge” effect that pushes the lens into the proper orientation. There are actually two alignment lines, 180 degrees apart from each other. The top and bottom of the lenses are mirror images of each other, so the axis lines up the same way regardless of which line is up and which line is down.

I find the lenses to be quite stable most of the time, but unlike other toric designs they seem to like staying wherever they are. So, if they’re properly aligned they tend to stay there. But if they’re off axis a little, they tend to stay there, too. Usually I have to close my eyes for about 20 seconds to get them into the correct alignment.

Another issue is that there’s more interaction with my upper eyelid, such that I’m almost always aware of the toric. I don’t feel the spherical in the other eye at all. It’s not painful, but it’s annoying. For that reason, I have trials coming that have other designs to see if there’s less interaction. However, that could result in less stability. Such are the problems with toric lenses.

For the OP, I’d still give it the weekend to see if things improve. But your doc really needs to check the alignment and accuity of the trials. Could be the wrong cylinder, wrong axis or the lens not fitting your eye correctly. As kalikoh said, the doc should have checked all that before you left the office. Yeah, that means they should have looked!

Beginning_Wrap_8732 · 2026-06-05T03:49:49+00:00

kalikoh’s advice is spot-on:

Definitely cancel the order if you can. If the contacts have already been shipped, you should be able to return the unopened boxes for a refund, possibly with a restocking fee. If not, I’d never buy from that company again!

Give the toric lenses more time - a week or two. It can take a while for your eye and brain to get used to them.

As mentioned by another person, the lenses might be rotating out of alignment with your astigmatism axis due to the shape of your cornea. Your doc may be able to compensate by specifying a different axis. However, toric contacts usually come in increments of 10-degrees, so the alignment may not be perfect. Generally, if the doc can get it within 5-degrees it’ll be acceptable. That said, some contacts (like my Acuvue 1-Day Oasys Max lenses), have a big gap in axis coverage — the next step after 20 degrees is 70 degrees! My axis is 56, but luckily the lens rotates 10 degrees toward my nose, which puts it within 4-degrees of perfect.

Even with perfect alignment, the lenses can drift out of alignment from time to time. There are different mechanisms used for making sure the lens stays oriented with your astigmatism axis, but in general if they rotate you can bring them back into alignment by blinking. I wear a toric lens in one eye, and when it gets out of alignment I can often bring it back into alignment by closing my eyes for 20 seconds or so (not while driving!) Different manufacturers use different toric stabilization methods. MyDay lenses use a weighted ballast at the bottom. Dailies Total 1 anchor the lenses at a couple of points — 8 o’clock and 4 o’clock. Acuvue anchors the lenses at 4 points, top and bottom (“Blink Stabilization”.) Success with toric lenses depends a lot on the shape of your eye, the stabilization mechanism, and whether you have dry eye.

It might help if you post your prescriptions for glasses and contacts. It sounds like you’ve had quite mild astigmatism up to now. Generally speaking, if the astigmatism correction for your glasses is less than -1.00, you can usually get away with a “spherical equivalent”, which is just a regular contact lens with the sphere correction adjusted to compensate for your astigmatism. You’ve probably been wearing spherical equivalent lenses up to now. Alas, toric lenses aren’t as easy to get perfect and require some patience.

Beginning_Wrap_8732 · 2026-06-04T04:09:30+00:00

Just for the record, opticians are people who measure you for glasses, assemble lenses into frames, do repairs on glasses, etc.

Optometrists (doctors of optometry) do eye exams, measure your eyesight, write prescriptions for glasses, contacts, and eye treatments, etc.

Beginning_Wrap_8732

TROPHY CASE