Table of contents:
- How to care for and clean the right contact lens
- 1. Wash hands before handling contact lenses
- 2. Remove the contact lens before showering and sleeping
- 3. Avoid using tap water
- 4. Use a special liquid contact lens cleaner
- 5. Avoid wearing contact lenses for too long
- 6. Pay attention to the expiration date
Instead of making good eyesight, using dirty contact lenses can certainly have a negative impact on the health of your sense of sight. So, of course, you need to know how to effectively clean and treat contact lenses.
How to care for and clean the right contact lens
According to the American Academy of Ophthalmology, dirty or unsuitable contact lenses can scratch the lining of your eye.
Even cleaning with eye drops is not an effective way out because it can damage the liquid on your contact lens. That is why, before deciding to use contact lenses you must have the correct knowledge as well.
For example, disposable contact lenses are usually more practical because they require less complicated maintenance, compared to contact lenses that can be worn repeatedly.
Here are some ways to clean and treat contact lenses so that you don't experience red eyes, irritation due to lenses and other eye problems.
1. Wash hands before handling contact lenses
One of the important tips in caring for and wearing contact lenses is to always wash your hands before handling contact lenses.
Try to wash your hands with soap and rinse thoroughly. Make sure that you don't have any soap, perfume, oil, or lotion left on the palms of your hands.
The reason is, immediately holding and wearing contact lenses without washing your hands first can risk transferring pathogens that cause infection from your fingers to contact lenses, then ending up in your eyes.
So, make it a habit to wash your hands before and after doing something. A tip that you should also try is to dry your hands with a lint-free tissue or towel before wearing soft lenses. This is important so that no dirt or lint gets stuck on your hands.
2. Remove the contact lens before showering and sleeping
The next tip in using the contact lens is that you have to remember when is the right time to remove the contact lens. Remove contact lenses before bathing, swimming, or any activity that can draw water in your eyes.
This is so that germs or chemical compounds in water, such as chlorine, do not stick to the contact lens. If left untreated, usually mild symptoms will appear, such as sore and itchy eyes. Forgetting to remove your contact lenses while showering can lead to conjunctivitis due to bacterial infection.
In addition, to care for and keep it clean, you must remove the contact lens before going to bed. This is because when you sleep, your closed eyes do not make your tears less oxygenated when you open your eyes.
3. Avoid using tap water
After successfully removing the contact lens without any problem, avoid using tap water in how to care for and clean the contact lens. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency website, nearly every tap water contains acanthamoeba, bacteria that can stick to and contaminate your contact lenses.
If this is allowed, of course it can cause problems in your eyes due to these bacterial infections. Therefore, make it a habit to use a special cleaning fluid for contact lenses so that cleanliness is maintained.
4. Use a special liquid contact lens cleaner
Use a special liquid contact lens cleaner when cleaning it. How to care for and clean the contact lenses on this one is very important because the lenses you often use are susceptible to bacterial infection.
There are actually many types of contact lens cleaning fluids. Among them, the most frequently used are multipurpose solution. According to the CDC, there are several ways you can go about cleaning the contact lenses with multipurpose solution.
- Scrub and rinse the contact lens each time you take it out.
- Save the contact lens in the cleaning fluid you just refilled.
- Avoid mixing new and old cleaning fluids as they can become contaminated.
- Wash contact lens storage containers with cleaning fluid.
- Remove excess solution from storage container and dry clean.
- Keep a clean container upside down on a clean tissue and open every time you use it so that germs don't build up.
- Change storage containers every three months.
5. Avoid wearing contact lenses for too long
The habit of wearing contact lenses for too long turns out not only to be bad for eye health, but also the contact lenses themselves. Therefore, one of the most important ways to maintain and care for the quality of your contact lenses is to rest them for a certain period of time.
Contact lenses, especially the soft type, create warm and humid temperatures for microorganisms such as bacteria, germs, fungi, and parasites to breed. As a result, your contact lenses are at risk of becoming a den of germs and the quality will decline.
Therefore, make sure you give your eyes room to breathe freely for a few hours a day. That is, set aside some of your time in a day without using contact lenses.
6. Pay attention to the expiration date
Another way that is no less important in caring for contact lenses is to pay attention to the expiration date printed on your contact lens packaging.
The expiration date is the safe limit for how long these contact lenses can be worn without harming your eyes. If your contact lenses are past their expiration date, they should be thrown away and don't use them again.
Expired contact lenses allow bacterial and fungal contamination in a sterile saline solution. This makes the contact lenses you wear in your eyes coated with various dust or other small particles.
The result of wearing expired contact lenses is that the lenses become uncomfortable to wear and worse, they can cause eye infections.
Using contact lenses means that you are committed to knowing and implementing how to properly care for and clean contact lenses. If you are still in doubt and worried about getting an infection, you can consult a doctor and see if the contact lenses you are using now are suitable.
