The Health Nut Blog

How To Care For Contact Lenses

Caring for contact lenses, unless they are worn once and thrown away, is simple but does require regular effort.

The first rule of caring for contact lenses is: clean, clean, clean. It doesn't have to be an obsession, but keeping contact lenses clean and sterile is the best way to minimize the odds of eye health problems.

Before you can hope to keep the lenses clean with solution, you have to keep your hands clean. Until someone devises a way to insert the lenses without using your fingers, that remains the most common route for micro-organisms to invade your eyes. Those little creatures live in water, air and on the surface of your hands. Before handling contacts, always wash your hands thoroughly with warm water and soap.

The next step is keeping each lens itself clean. All come pre-packaged in a sterile solution that has been treated to eliminate any organisms. So, you start out with a clean field, as the professionals say. Keeping it that way requires proper handling and cleaning.

Older cleaning solutions (some types of which are still around) contained preservatives that could encourage the growth of compounds that could affect the eye. Some still require putting the contact in the palm of your hand with a small amount of solution and rubbing the lens with the tip of your finger.

That method still works and health problems are few and far between. But newer rub-free solutions lower the risk further. It's also a small added convenience. Some solutions don't require rinsing, either, which lowers health risks still more.

If your contacts are designed to be removed and re-used (as many still are), they need to be handled and stored correctly, too.

You can't avoid finger contact since there's no other way to get the lens in or out. Though, permanent, implantable lenses are making great strides! But be sure to move the lens directly from your finger into a sterile cleaning solution. Don't rest it on the counter first. That only ups the odds of picking up surface dirt, bacteria that live on countertops and other nasty things that will pollute the cleaning solution. Never re-use solution, either.

Keep the lenses covered to prevent airborne germs from getting continual, easy access to them and the cleaning solution when they're sitting overnight.

Be sure to follow the manufacturer's and your eye care professional's guidance about your specific type of contact lens. They both have considerable experience in keeping your contacts in the best shape and minimizing the risks of eye problems. The research performed over the past 50 years on eye health and contact lenses is vast and both have incorporated that knowledge into their practices. Benefit from that.

Caring for contact lenses can quickly become a simple, quick routine that optimizes your contacts wear lifetime and your eye health. Just follow these common sense guidelines and enjoy your vision.

# posted by NeilG @ 2:06 AM