Contact Lenses Care

Spare or Replacement Lens. Whether you have insurance or not, you’ll have to pay for extra lenses. I advise my patients to buy a spare pair of lenses to keep handy for instant replacement.

Accessories and Solutions.Nothing lasts forever, and sooner or later you’ll need a new supply.

Polishing and Cleaning.Hard lenses can have scratches and accumulations removed by polishing to prolong their useful life. This can only be provided by a laboratory and should be performed twice a year. Unfortunately no similar procedure exists for thoroughly cleaning soft lenses, which must be maintained as well as possible by the wearer on a regular basis.

Follow-up Visits. You should have a complete medical ocular examination every six months after purchasing your lenses, in order to update the lenses if necessary and to make certain that your eyes and contacts remain clear and healthy.

Insurance.This used to be an absolute necessity. Not only did people drop and damage their contacts because they weren’t used to handling such delicate objects, but the hard lenses used to pop out more frequently than today’s better-made, better- fitting lenses. They were also less comfortable and so more often removed, cleaned, and reinserted—and more handling increases the risk of damage and loss.

Many contact lens wearers still opt for insuring their lenses against damage or loss, but be sure to ask your practitioner for advice. Hard-lens wearers may be prone to loss, but soft-lens wearers find they must replace worn-out lenses frequently— sometimes every year. Your doctor may have an office policy or will have an established insurance policy available. Most plans are computerized to simplify paper work and speed settlements; they may be offered by insurance companies or even contact lens manufacturers themselves. Most apply a deductible like any medical insurance and usually require that you pay only a predetermined fitting fee to the practitioner who will inspect the lenses and examine the fit.

When considering an insurance plan, first find out the cost of replacing the lens without insurance. Then compare that with the cost of a lens replacement with insurance. Since the relative cost of replacing lenses has decreased over the years, it may actually be cheaper in the long run to simply buy a new lens whenever necessary, especially if you are the usual type of contact lens wearer who seldom loses or damages lenses.

Contact Lens Solutions

Various types of solutions are needed to keep contact lenses clean, hydrated, and compatible with the eye. The needs of soft and hard lenses differ somewhat. (Thus two sets of solutions and care systems exist—see below.) Both systems usually utilize preservatives that kill bacteria, viruses, and fungi that can cause ocular infections. These preservatives should ideally be effective against the most common of these microorganisms, but remain harmless to the eyes; at the same time, they should not interfere with the other functions of the solutions. Unfortunately no single antimicrobial agent or combination of agents that can do all that has yet been found. Substances that are capable of killing living microorganisms may be potentially harmful to the living cells in the eye. The eye sometimes becomes irritated by the very chemicals in the solutions that are supposed to protect them, and soft contact lens wearers in particular may become allergic to the two preservatives, thimerosal and chlorhexidine. (In Japan, solutions containing thimerosal have been banned.) The preservatives are not the only unsolved problem. Even with wetting solutions, hard lenses do not stay “wet” and comfortable forever; in spite of the special cleaning solutions soft lenses can’t always be cleaned completely and may “wear out” by becoming “spoiled.”

Your contact lens specialist will recommend specific products for you to use. It is the doctor’s task to evaluate the contact lens solutions with special attention to their effect upon the lenses and upon the human eye. In this ever-evolving field, solutions are improving along with their accompanying lenses. The search for the all-in-one solution is especially keen, because this would make the maintenance process more convenient and increase patient compliance. Such solutions do exist, though in my opinion they leave something to be desired. It is better to use the more effective individual solutions for each procedure.

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