Wearing And Caring For Your Contact Lenses

Whether you’re new to contact lenses or have been using them for a while, here are a few tips on wearing and caring for your lenses.

Tip 1: Stick to your replacement schedule

Following your replacement schedule is key to keep your eyes healthy and happy. Contact lenses are designed for specific wearing times. For example, daily disposable lenses, are those that must be discarded after every removal. If you have lenses that last for longer e.g. monthly lenses – make sure you clean, rinse, and disinfect the lenses each time you remove them from your eye and then discard them after a month.

Tip 2: Cleanliness is critical

Cleanliness is an important aspect of proper contact lens care and handling of your new lenses. Your hands should be clean and free of any foreign substances when you handle your lenses:

• Always wash your hands thoroughly with a mild soap, rinse completely, and dry with a lint-free towel before touching your lenses
• Avoid the use of soaps containing cold cream, lotion, or oily cosmetics before handling your lenses, since these substances may come into contact with the lenses and interfere with successful wearing
• Handle your lenses with your fingertips, and be careful to avoid contact with fingernails. It is helpful to keep your fingernails short and smooth

Tip 3: Follow a strict lens care routine

It is easy to care for contact lenses that you use for, for more than one day. Just be sure to follow a strict routine. All you need is a good solution, such as Biotrue solution. This conditions cleans, removes protein, disinfects, rinses and stores soft contact lenses including silicone hydrogel contact lenses.

These steps are recommended when using ReNu MultiPlus solution for a healthy and comfortable contact lens wearing experience:

• STEP 1: Place at least 3 drops of ReNu multi-purpose solution on each side of the lens surface and gently rub for 20 seconds. Only use fresh solution to clean and disinfect contact lenses
• STEP 2: Thoroughly rinse each side of the lens for 5 seconds with the ReNu multi-purpose solution
• STEP 3: Place cleaned contact lenses in the lens case and fill with fresh Biotrue multi-purpose solution. Soak at least 4 hours. Remember to always use fresh solution – discard solution from lens case after each use

Your contact lenses are now ready to wear. If any debris remains on contact lenses, rinse with ReNu multi-purpose solution prior to insertion.

Storage: If you decide not to wear your contact lenses immediately, store them in a closed lens case. Do not store your lenses in simple saline in place of Biotrue multi-purpose solution. The saline solution will not disinfect. Lenses may be stored in the unopened case until ready to wear, up to a maximum of 30 days. If you store your lenses for longer periods of time, they must be cleaned and disinfected with a fresh ReNu multi-purpose solution prior to lens insertion.

Tip 4: Care for your Lens Case too

Contact lens cases can be a source of bacteria growth. Lens cases should be emptied, cleaned, rinsed with solutions recommended by the lens case manufacturer, and allowed to air dry each time you remove the contact lenses from it. Lens cases should be replaced at regular intervals too.

Lastly, if you have any adverse reactions – here’s what to do…

If you notice any issue with your contact lenses such as eye stinging, burning, itching, eye pain, or comfort less than when lens was first put in, abnormal feeling of something in the eye, excessive watering, unusual eye secretions, redness, reduced sharpness of vision, blurred vision, rainbows or halos around objects, sensitivity to light or dry eyes you should:

• Immediately remove your lenses
• If the discomfort or problem stops, then look closely at the lens. If the lens is in any way damaged, do not put the lens back on your eye. Place the lens in the storage case and contact your eye care professional. If the lens has dirt, an eyelash, or another foreign body on it, or the problem stops and the lens appears undamaged, you should thoroughly clean, rinse, and disinfect the lenses; then reinsert them. After reinsertion, if the problem continues, you should immediately remove the lenses and consult your eye care professional

When any of the above problems continue, a serious condition may be present. You should keep the lens off your eye until your eye care professional can identify the problem.