Contact Lenses Care

Your lenses are delicate, expensive objects. Your eyes are sensitive, irreplaceable organs. To maintain the vision, health, and comfort of your eyes and prolong the useful life of your contacts, meticulous care and handling are of extreme importance. The techniques used to insert and remove the lenses may seem difficult and awkward at first, but with time, patience, perseverance, and motivation you will master them just as thousands of others have. They’ll soon become simple routines as you develop your own individual technique, and as natural and easy as brushing your teeth or tying your shoelaces. Specific procedures vary somewhat and depend upon you and the type of lens you wear. But certain general principles apply no matter what.

1. Cleanliness Is Next to Godliness.

Before handling your lenses, wash your hands and face, making sure that your eyelashes are free of mascara and that the eyelids are “squeaky clean.” Use a mild soap containing no creams, oils, or perfumes that may cling to your hands and cloud the lenses or cause irritation. You may want to use a special soap (Optisoap, made by Optiken International) developed especially for contact lens wearers. Use a lint-free towel to dry your hands and face. Follow the directions for cleaning, disinfecting, wetting, and/ or rinsing lenses before insertion and storage.

Don’t use anything other than the specified solutions for your lenses. Don’t use hard lens preparations for soft lenses and vice versa. Do not use saliva to clean a lens. Your mouth is full of bacteria and may cause an eye infection, to say nothing about the possibility of swallowing a lens (a bitter pill indeed). During the course of a lively dinner conversation, if your lens begins to bother you, don’t nonchalantly pop it into your mouth—you may discover a bit of spinach, crepes suzette, or Staphylococcus aureus has found its way into your eye along with the replaced lens.

2. Set Up a Work Area.

It’s usually recommended that you insert and remove lenses over a flat surface covered with a clean white towel so that if a contact lens inadvertently falls it will be protected from scratches, and will be easy to find. Many people, however, find working over the bathroom sink more convenient. Just remember that such conditions are riskier if you drop a lens. Always close and cover the drain or be prepared to wish your lens bon voyage as it begins its travels through the city’s water system.

At first you may find that sitting at a table and looking into a mirror during insertion and removal will be helpful. But you should try to break the habit as soon as possible; remember, you won’t always have access to a mirror.

3. Be Gentle.

Handle a lens as little as possible and as gently as possible, without pinching it between the edges. Your fingernails should be kept relatively short and smooth to avoid harming your lenses (and eyes!). Don’t clean the lenses by wiping them between a tissue or cloth. A contact lens is not a pair of glasses: the delicate plastic from which they are made can be easily scratched. Routinely check your lenses for scratches and visible deposits that can affect vision and comfort and can harbor dangerous microorganisms.

4. Establish a Routine.

To avoid mixing up your lenses, always work with one lens at a time, and always start with the same one (usually the right one).

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