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Hygiene is critical to wearing your contact lenses safely.

Contact lenses can significantly improve your vision, but it’s essential to care for them properly to avoid potentially serious infections or other problems.

These recommendations will help extend the life of your contact lenses and keep your eyes safe and healthy. 

Your lens insertion and removal routine

  • Before you handle contacts, wash and rinse your hands with a mild soap.
  • Make sure the soap doesn’t have perfumes, oils, or lotions. They can leave a film on your hands.
  • Dry your hands with a clean, lint-free towel before touching your contacts.
  • It’s a good idea to keep your fingernails short and smooth so you won't damage your lenses or scratch your eye when inserting or removing your contacts.
  • Lightly rubbing your contact in the palm of your hand with a few drops of solution helps remove surface build-up.
  • Rinse your lenses thoroughly with a recommended solution before soaking the contacts overnight in a multi-purpose solution that completely covers each lens.
  • Store lenses in the proper lens storage case.
  • Don't use tap water or saliva to wash or store contact lenses or lens cases.
  • If you use hair spray, use it before you put in your contacts.
  • Put on eye makeup after you put in your lenses. Take them out before you remove makeup.
  • Always follow the recommended contact lens replacement and wearing schedule prescribed.

Your supplies

  • Use doctor-recommended solution.
  • Rub and rinse your contact lens case with sterile contact lens solution. Never use water.
  • Clean the case after each use.
  • Replace your contact lens case at least once every three months. 
  • Don’t “top off” solution. Use only fresh contact lens disinfecting solution in your case. 
  • Never mix fresh solution with the old or used solution.
  • Change your contact lens solution according to the manufacturer's recommendations.

Your eye doctor

  • Visit us yearly or as often as recommended.
  • Ask us if you have questions about how to care for your contacts and case or if you are having any difficulties.
  • Remove your contact lenses immediately if your eyes become irritated. Call us and let us know what’s going on.
  • Call us if you have any sudden vision loss, blurred vision that doesn’t get better, light flashes, eye pain, infection, swelling, unusual redness, or irritation. 

Wear your contacts safely

  • Some contacts need special care and products. Always use the disinfecting solution, eye drops, and enzymatic cleaners your doctor recommends. Some eye products or eye drops aren’t safe for contact wearers.
  • Saline solution and rewetting drops do not disinfect lenses.
  • Use a rewetting solution or plain saline solution to keep your eyes moist.
  • Don’t wear your contacts when you go swimming in a pool or at the beach.
  • Don't sleep in your contact lenses unless prescribed by your eye doctor.
  • Don’t clean or store your contacts in water.
  • See us for your regularly scheduled contact lens and eye examination.
  • If you think you’ll have trouble remembering when to change your lenses, ask for a chart to track your schedule or make one for your needs.

Be sure to call us if you have any questions about caring for your contact lenses or if your eyes are having problems.

Stewart Family Eye Care

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Ask Dr. Stewart Your Eye Care Questions

What can be expected during a contact lens fitting?

A patient can expect to have a different experience when having a contact lens fitting. In addition to the eyeglass exam, questions will be asked to determine which contact lens will work best for them. Will they want to leave the lenses in their eyes overnight or will they remove them every day? Will they wear them only occasionally or will they be for everyday use? Do they want a contact lens that they throw away every day or do they want a contact lens that they have to clean and disinfect? If the patient is over age 40 and has a compromised ability to see up close, how will they see up close with their contact lenses? Will they wear readers over their distant contacts, or will they wear multifocal contacts, or will they wear monovision?

Are some people more prone to having Dry Eyes than others?

Experiencing dry eye symptoms is more common as we grow older, particularly in people 50 years of age and older. Hormonal changes in women who are experiencing menopause or who are post-menopausal. Inflammation in our body can affect the tear gland's ability to produce tears. Eye or health conditions such as glaucoma, diabetes, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, and Sjogren's Syndrome can be associated with Dry Eyes. Environmental conditions such as dry winter air, dry indoor heated air, working on the computer, and wearing contact lenses can cause Dry Eyes.

Are there advantages to single-use contact lenses? What are they?

Single-use daily wear contacts are convenient to the patient and a healthy recommendation from their eye doctor. At the end of the day, the patient only has to dispose of the contacts. There is no need to take the contacts out to clean and disinfect them. The patients time and money spent on solutions and caring for them are eliminated. Not to mention that the next time they wear a contact, they will be wearing a brand new contact! The single best recommendation your eye doctor can make is to recommend single-use daily wear contacts. They are the healthiest contact that can be worn. The contact lens pathology issues of wearing the same contact for two or four weeks such as neovascularization, microcystic edema, and bacterial infections are greatly reduced.

What is an eye infection?

Your eyes can get infections from bacteria, fungi, or viruses. Eye infections can occur in different parts of the eye and can affect just one eye or both. Two common eye infections are conjunctivitis (also known as pink eye) and lid styes which are swollen lid bumps that can also be painful. Common signs of an eye infection are pain, itching, or a sensation of a foreign body in the eye, photosensitivity, redness or small red lines in the white of the eye, discharge of yellow pus that may be crusty upon awaking, and tears.

What happens during a typical Diabetic Eye Exam?

Your Eye Doctor will evaluate the back of your eye called the Retina to check for leaking blood vessels. Diabetic retinopathy occurs when elevated blood sugars damage the walls of the blood vessels. The vessel walls may thicken, leak, develop clots, close off, or grow balloon-like defects called microaneurysms.

My eyes tear all the time. Why do you call it Dry Eyes?

Your eyes have extra tears because your eyes produce extra tears to combat irritation and dryness. A better way to describe Dry Eyes is tear film instability, which refers to the composition of your tears not being in the proper composition. Stopping eyes from producing extra tears is a goal in the treatment of Dry Eyes.

At what age should my child have his/her eyes examined?

If you ask 10 different Doctors you will get 10 different answers. Newborns have their eyes checked in the birthing ward for starters. From birth to age 5 their eyes are growing. At age 5 is a good time to schedule a regular eye examination, however, if any unusual eye behavior is observed under age 5 an eye exam should be scheduled at that time. Unusual eye behavior such as eye squinting, a head tilt, or having to get close to see.