Are Hubble Contact Lenses really Worth trying? An Optometrist's (eye doctor's) perspective

I was sitting on my couch and came across a commercial for Hubble. It talked about a new dailies contact lens that harped mainly on the fact about how cheap the lens was. Very quickly a red flag went off in my head. You've probably seen the commercial and I'm sure millions have seen it too. This led me to do some digging about the contact lens.

History

First let me tell you a little about the history of contact lenses. The first contact lens was a scleral lens made of blown glass by German glass blower F. E. Muller. It was a large lens that rested on the white less sensitive part of the eye called the sclera. It vaulted over the clear part of the eye called the cornea. A dextrose solution was used as a medium in between the cornea and the lens. It was large and could only be worn a few hours at a time. These lenses persisted until the 1930s when PMMA a special type of plastic was invented. With this invention, a smaller contact lens that rested on cornea was produced. The main issue with this type of lens was that it allowed less oxygen to pass through to the cornea which introduced a host of issues. The cornea is a living tissue and is one of the most important structures of the eye as it allows light to pass through into the eye. It does not have blood vessels to deliver oxygen to it, because blood would block your vision. Instead the cornea, especially the surface, gets most of its oxygen from the air. This is quantified by the oxygen transmissibility or (Dk) of the lens. While Dk is more commonly used to judge lenses, the actual transmissibility of a lens depends also on thickness of the lens which increases with higher powers. By slapping a large piece of plastic on your eye you are essentially choking your cornea by blocking the oxygen that is necessary for your eyes.


PMMA essentially allowed no oxygen to get through to the cornea and had to rely on oxygenation through tear exchange. This led to the creation of  ridged gas permeable (RGP) lenses in the 1970s which improved oxygen delivery to the cornea. While the RGP was being developed, the first soft lens was created in the 1960s. It was made of a softer hydrogel material that was much more comfortable that the ridged lenses. These lenses had a Dk of ~9. Bausch and Lomb was the first company to produce these lenses. Further advancements in soft contact lens technology focused on increasing the oxygen permeability through the polymer material. Hydrogels today have a Dk upwards 25. The next largest advancement of soft lenses was the development of silicon hydrogel. These lenses allowed for a much higher Dk, upwards of 100.

This leads me to the new Hubble lens. Can I recommend this lens? In short, No. Why? Lets analyze this lens and then compare it to the competitors.

Oxygen Permeability (Dk)

From looking at the history of the contact lens mentioned above, this is one of the most crucial factors when looking at a contact lens. Lenses with lower Dk "choke" and kill the cells in the cornea called the epithelium. The epithelium is one of the most important layers as it is the skin of the cornea. This creates little open wounds on the eye which we can see as bright yellow dots when stained with yellow dye. These open wounds allow for bacteria, virus, fungus, or other microbes to invade the eye. If serious enough, they may cause irreversible blindness or even death as fungi can eventually spread from your eye to your brain. This is why oxygen permeability is extremely important for the health of the eye. Another issue that this causes is that when the cornea is choked, it has to find another oxygen source. Blood vessels start to grow from the white part of the eye on to the clear part of the eye. If not controlled, it can lead to cloudiness of the cornea and eventual blindness. Hubble lenses have Dk from sources ranging from 18-21. Acuvue 1-day moist on the other hand has a Dk ranging from 25.5 - 28. Dailies Aqua Comfort Plus has a Dk of about 28. They are all based off of hydrogel gel polymers, and already with such a low Dk, its best to get as much Dk as you can get.


Material / hydrogel design (metafilcon A)

As you can see already not all Hydrogels are created equal. They vary with oxygen permeability by the water content of the lens. The more water content of hydrogel lenses the more oxygen is transmitted. Metafilcon A is a much older type of material that was used in lenses such as Frequency 55 which, made by Coopervision, is now discontinued. Many of the lenses that optometrists now prescribe are of newer material such as etafilcon A in 1 day
moist and nelfilcon A in Dailies Aqua Comfort Plus. Hubble is pretty much rebranding 15-20 year old lens and selling it to you as the next "new" thing to the unsuspecting consumer. "New" is not always better. Do your research. Reputable companies like Vistacon, Alcon, and Coopervision will always improve on their material which is why frequency 55 was discontinued.

Bottom line... Do they really care about the consumer's health and/or vision?

The old saying holds true in this respect you get what you pay for. But when it comes down to your eyes and vision, is this something you really want to take a risk with? You spend maybe an hour or two watching cable TV and maybe 3-4 more on your phone or at the computer. Yet you are willing to spend over $1000 on your cell phone bill, $500-$600 on your cable bill, and another $500-$600 on your internet bill. How often on the other hand do you use your eyes? I'll give you a hint.

Its pretty much every single waking second of your life. In fact you have to use your eyes to watch tv, look at your phone, and to look at your computer. Why do you neglect your eye's health? Whats a few hundred dollars a year to make sure your eye health is protected and your vision is the best it can be?

By using cheaper material for the sake of cutting costs, this company Hubble is gambling with the health of your eyes. They dont care about you and is devaluing the importance of eye health to save you a couple dollars. As health care professionals I cannot harm my patients by prescribing them this lens when I know that there is something better.

I will leave you with a first hand experience about this lens from my girlfriend who is an optometrist as well. She had a patient come in saying that she had ordered these Hubble lenses, but had blurry vision through them. My girlfriend did a refraction on her patient and found out something completely startling and unethical about this company. Her patient was found to have a high astigmatic prescription. Hubble did not have astigmatic lenses at the time and instead gave her a spherical lens without letting the patient know. Of course she ended up not being able to see out of them and thus had to return for another eye exam to get another pair of lenses. Hubble did not even have the decency to let her know that they did not have a lens to fit her needs. This just shows the greed of the company and how they only care for themselves and not the consumer.