5 Important Things to Know About Contact Lenses

For those who are annoyed by having to push the glasses onto the bridge of the nose or to fight against unstable, uneven frames, obtaining contact lenses can be a completely liberating experience. Since they move with your eye, contact lenses give you a full field of vision wherever you look, plus they’re easy to use and comfortable to wear. But in order to enjoy those freedoms, you do need to practice proper care when it comes to cleaning and wearing contact lenses.
The reality is that it doesn’t take much to reduce your risk of infection and safely wear contact lenses—if you follow these five best practices. Your contact lenses should know.

Don’t Overwear Us

Do you often try to get one more day out of your daily disposables, or an extra week out of your monthly contacts? Using contact lenses past their recommended usage period is a very common—and potentially very serious—mistake. “We see many complications related to overwear in my practice,” says Ann Madden, O.D., an optometrist at the Grossnickle Eye Center in Indiana. Overuse can cause the lens to degrade and protein to build up in the eye. This can cause allergic reactions and reduce the oxygen permeability of the lens (the cornea needs oxygen to stay healthy), potentially leading to infections and other damage.

We Don’t Mix Well With Water

Water can cause soft contact lenses to change shape, swell and stick to the cornea. “This can irritate the eyes, making them susceptible to infection,” Dr. Madden says. This is why you should never rinse or store your reusable contacts in water, and always use an appropriate contact lenssolution. The same goes for exposing your soft contact lenses to water while showering and swimming—even a short time in water can expose your contact lenses to bacteria that may be harmful. There’s also an amoeba that lives in both fresh and tap water, called Acanthamoeba, that can fester underneath the contact lens and lead to a serious infection.

Please, Please Clean Us

Your Contact Lenses Wish to tell you that if you clean your contacts correctly, you’ll reduce your risk of irritation, bacterial infection and inflammation that can lead to inflammatory corneal ulcers, or open sores on your cornea. The key to keeping reusable contact lenses germ-free is to rub them between your fingers (wash your hands with soap and water first!) when you clean them with a disinfecting solution recommended by your eye doctor. With this move, you’re literally rubbing away microbes and other deposits. Then give them a good rinse with the solution. Of course, you can sidestep the cleaning process entirely if you opt for daily disposables, which you never have to clean since you dispose of them after every wear and start with a fresh pair each day. And speaking of cleanliness, remember this mantra: contacts first, makeup second. Insert your contact lenses before putting on makeup, and remove them before washing off your makeup. This reduces the chance that bacteria and particles from mascara, eye shadow and other cosmetics will get onto your lenses.

Keep Our Case Clean, Too

Your case needs to be as clean as your contacts. If it’s not, biofilms, or layers of bacteria, can build up, potentially infecting your reusable lenses. In fact, research suggests that proper case cleaning could cut the number of serious infections in half. Here’s the best method: Pour out any solution you have in your case—you want to get rid of used solution, rather than top it off the next time you use it. Then rub the inside of the case with clean fingers, rinse with solution, dry with a tissue and store upside down, without the cap on. Lastly, replace your case every three months. An easy way to remember: Buy a bunch at once, and change cases on the first day of every new season.

Ready for Bed? Don’t Forget to Remove Us!

Sleeping with your contact lenses can be risky because it ups your chance of getting a corneal infection called microbial keratitis, which is a bacterial infection that can cause pain, redness and blurred vision. This can happen due to a combination of a potential buildup of pollutants on the contact lens, a lack of eye and lid movement while you sleep, and less oxygen getting to your eye, which your cornea needs to stay healthy. Keep these tips in mind and visit your eye doctor regularly—usually once per year, if you wear contact lenses—and you can count on healthy contacts and healthy eyes.