Contact lenses are a great way to get clear vision without affecting your looks! Not only are they better than glasses during sports, but the quality and field of vision they offer is often superior.

But are contact lenses safe?

Contact lens handling requires a certain amount of care. Let’s discuss a few tips about #contactlenses and how to take care of them.

Dos

1. Wash hands before inserting the contact lenses

The importance of hand hygiene cannot be stressed more. Touching your contact lenses or your eyes with unclean hands can cause a serious infection of the cornea known as “keratitis“.

2. Discard all solutions one month after opening

It is important to use a contact lens solution of a good brand to clean and store your lenses. What is more important is to discard the solution one month after opening.

I’ll tell you why. Every contact lens solution is sterile when packed. A preservative is added to the solution that helps keep it sterile even after the seal is opened. However, the life of the preservative is limited to one month. Beyond that, there is a risk of contamination of the solution with germs that could cause infection.

3. Always keep your spectacles up to date

If you lose or break a contact lens, or if you are advised not to wear contact lenses for any period of time, a good up to date pair of spectacles will always come in handy.

It is always best to avoid last minute rush.

4. Carry your storage case and solution with you all the time.

You may need to remove your contact lenses for a while and put them back. And your storage case and solution become totally necessary.

It is a good idea to carry them with you all the time.

5. Remember the importance of good blinking.

Regular and complete blinking will help you to keep the contact lens moist and clean. It prevents dryness and irritation in your eyes

Don’ts

1. Never sleep with the contact lenses on

Sleeping with contact lenses on can turn out to be a nightmare. You would most likely wake up with red and painful eyes.

Sleeping with contact lenses on actually hampers the oxygen supply to your cornea and increases the risk of keratitis.

2. Do not wear the contact lenses for longer than they are intended

If your contact lenses are daily disposable, you disposable them daily. If they are monthly disposable, you use them for a month and discard them. The duration specified for a particular type of contact lens is the time when it is at its best.

The quality of the contact lens degrades over time, and using them longer than they are intended to, could lead to injury and infection of the eyes.

3. Never use tap water for cleaning your lenses

Tap water and homemade lens solutions often contain germs and impurities that can seriously harm your eyes. A contact lens cleaned with tap water and inserted in the eye acts as a reservoir for germs, especially acanthamoeba, a pathogen that causes a fulminant keratitis and can lead to loss of vision.

4. Never continue wearing your lenses if your eyes are uncomfortable or unusually red.

If your eye is red, it is a warning sign that something is wrong. You need to consult an eye specialist immediately.

Never continue wearing contact lenses on a red eye as it will worsen the infection.

5. Remove lenses before removing eye makeup

Removing eye makeup requires you to rub over your eyelid a few times with the cleansing solution, and you wouldn’t want to do that with a contact lens inside your eye. It could lead to injury to your cornea.

Only after you have removed your contact lens, you may safely proceed to remove your eye makeup.

Contact lenses are a healthy and safe option, provided you take due care during handling.

Got questions? Drop a comment below or email me at neha.pednekar1489@gmail.com