Your contact lens prescription includes the power and fitting details of your contact lenses and is specific to the individual brand of lenses you use – it is not possible to change brand without seeing a contact lens optician.

You can only get your contact lens prescription if you have had a recent check up on your lenses and it will usually be dated for 12 months from the last check up – hence if it is a while since your last aftercare appointment your prescription may have expired. Your prescription must have at least 6 months date on it for someone to be able to dispense it legally.

Additionally if you are on a scheme where you collect lenses every 3 months and have a check up each time you collect (usually because you sleep in your lenses or have a medical condition that needs monitoring) then the optician is likely to only issue a prescription that is valid for 3 months which unfortunately can't legally be dispensed except by the prescriber.